Oh, the places we've been! (over the last 3 days...)

So few days, so many wonderful places to go!  Day 1, we visited the world's largest meteor crater, Winslow AZ, a Homolovi ancestral archaeology site, and the Small Painted Desert.

The meteor crater was caused by a meteor hitting the earth at about 26,000 mph approximately 50,000 years ago.  It hit the earth with an estimated explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT.  This immediately created a crater 700 ft deep and over 4000 ft across.  Over the eons, natural debris has settled in the bottom of the crater leaving it only 600 feet deep.  And it IS deep and wide!

Back in the 1980's a mining engineer obtained the land by putting in 4 iron mines.  He really wanted to find the meteor and spent 26 years looking for it.  It doesn't exist; it was totally disintegrated during the impact through vaporization, melting, and fragmentation. There are two tiny black spots near the middle of the crater - they are the drill that he used to search for the meteor and the steam engine used to run the drill. He went to 1400 ft deep, hit water, gave up, and died within a year.

This is about as close as we wanted to get to the edge of the crater.

Luke decided to sit on a ledge to get a good picture.

In THIS picture, however, we are "standing on a corner in Winslow, AZ - such a fine sight to see"

Yes, we're standing with Don Henley of the Eagles in Winslow, AZ. Note the eagle in the window above us?
Here is the corner.  Both Don Henley and Glen Frye are here, along with the flatbed ford and if you look in the window, you'll see the "girl, my lord, in a flatbed ford"

From Winslow, we drove to one of the Homolovi 14th century archaeological sites in the Homolovi State Park. The Hopi people consider the high grassland here part of their homeland. The Homolovi State Park was created to help protect these ancestral sites in 1986. This is the park we are staying in. The park serves as a center of research for the late migration period of the Hopi from the late 1200s to the late 1300's.  We drove to one of the sites to see the remains of a 14th century pueblo.

Shards of ancient pottery still litter the ground.  This is a sacred area and everyone is asked to not take "souvenirs".  Apparently most people are respectful and don't take anything.  Many flat rocks are filled with pieces of  amazing 14th century pottery shards that have been found and put in an obvious place to see.  It was just humbling to me to touch these pieces and think of the history and life they saw.

And there is more to the day.  The Small Painted Desert is a mere 10 miles from the campground entrance.  We headed there in the late afternoon.  It is a stunning view.  The desert floor slowly gives way to rising badlands.

The colors are just beautiful.

Day 2, the combination of the Petrified Forest NP and the Painted Desert which is within the Petrified Forest NP.  This 28 mile drive kept us in awe.  I think I was expecting a few petrified trees inside a ring of protective barbed wire, but I was wrong!  The entire park - and much of the area outside of the park - is strewn with the pieces of petrified trees.  These fossils are from the Late Triassic Period, 251 to 199 million years ago.

Many of the petrified wood is pieces, but occasionally you can see full trees like this one.

Look at these colors!  The "petrified wood" is no longer wood - it is now rock due to the process of being covered in sediment and the chemical reaction to volcanic ash and oxides.  The white is pure quartz and manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides create yellow through red through brown.

Agate Bridge was popular to walk across back in the early 1900's but not today!  Preservation is more important now.  The petrified tree was shored up by concrete many years ago.

The Badlands with many many large pieces of petrified wood.

A trail goes through this section.

Ravens are everywhere.  In fact, that is about the only wildlife we saw.  They are often puffed up like this as they survey their domain.

This rock is called "Newspaper Rock" and has over 650 petroglyphs, some over 2000 years old.

There is an intersection in the park where the old Route 66 once cut through the park.  A 1932 Studebaker sits there, along with the remaining telephone poles from the old road.  Some even have their old insulators still attached.

Oh, the Painted Desert! 

We didn't think we could beat Day 2, but we tried - we drove 2 1/2 hrs to see the Grand Canyon for Day 3.  We have explored it before and it is simply breathtaking.

It is no wonder that it is one of America's favorite parks, not to mention also favored by a lot of international tourists.  Unfortunately, the park did not seem prepared for the onslaught of Spring Break.  Half of the bathroom facilities were closed for maintenance, leaving lines of over 50 women waiting for the 1 bathroom at the Visitor Center. I know, I was in the line twice and I counted... The parking situation is so bad that the park now encourages tourists to park outside of the park and take a shuttle back and forth to the Visitor Center.  Lines to go through the fee both can be 1 hr long during the day and parking lots are full by 11 a.m.  Areas of the park are accessible only by shuttle bus but there were not enough of them either - crowds tying to catch a bus to get back to the Visitor Center around 4 p.m. waited impatiently as full bus after full bus passed them by with promises of "another bus will be here in a few minutes".  But enough of that - the park was still beautiful and awe inspiring.

The Colorado River snakes through the Grand Canyon.

The bottom of the gorge is a loooong way down....

The views were worth the hassle.   That's the Colorado River down there again.

Today, Day 4 at Homolovi SP we stayed at the park and caught up on "stuff".  Groceries, cleaning, a blog :-), and a little handy man chore in the desert for Luke.  This isn't a panorama picture, the desert naturally flows like that.

Tomorrow we plan to go to Albuquerque to visit Luke's 97 year old uncle from Belgium along with his son and a visiting niece who lives in Belgium.  Also, sailing buddies Bonnie and Pete are passing through on their West tour this winter and we'll be with them for a few days! Looking forward to it all.