Meteor Crater in Arizona....

Today, after a very leisurely start, we headed 5 miles up the road to the entrance of Meteor Crater.


This awesome “hole in the ground” is privately owned, but on the register of natural occurring phenomenon in the world. It is touted as the best-preserved and first-proven meteorite impact site in the world. It has a circumference of 2.4 miles and is over 550 feet deep. It is truly a huge hole in the ground. Early on it was believed that the hole was created by a volcanic explosion, but finally in 1960 it was proven that the hole was actually caused by a giant impact of something from outer space more than 50,000 years ago. NASA has trained here because the topography so closely resembles that of the Earth’s Moon and other planets. Several movies have also been filmed here for the same reason.



We took the ½ mile hike along the rim of the crater, which was led by our guide Eduardo . We had a very interesting walk during which he told us of the interesting history and geology of the crater and surrounding areas. The wind was brutal, but he said we were fortunate to be here on a relatively calm day! An interesting bit of trivia - the Coconino Sandstone that is now on the top layer of the surface is a very fine powder that they tried to market as a cleanser named (hold on) Comet - cause it came from the crater! It didn’t exactly work, so they found something different to use - and still called it “Comet”! The Coconino Sandstone should be at the 500 foot level, but the impact caused it to be inverted and deposited as the top layer - only here at the crater site. Everywhere else on the Colorado Plateau the Coconino is the third layer down where it belongs.


Our walk ended at a point called “picture rock” - Eduardo took our picture as we stood almost too close to the edge of a very steep drop off! Fortunately the wind calmed down for enough time to get our picture without blowing us off the edge - or my hair in my face.

We enjoyed our visit and returned to the coach by early afternoon to relax and get ready for our move tomorrow. It is different getting back into the “travel mode”, but I think we are getting there - slowly, but still missing our space in Yuma.