Some time in the spring I was out driving around and just happened
upon a field of wildflowers. While not the best picture in the world,
it's still a pretty nice view of what's out there when you just point
your car in some direction and drive.
It sure gets pretty hot out here, especially during summer, so I
decided to invest in tinted windows this year. It was $140 at a local
shop that did a pretty good job except with the rear window. It's
not messed up or anything, but there's an air bubble in one part that
glares in direct sun, or from headlights at night. Oh well. Overall
a pretty nice addition.
It's a bit hard to judge distance in pictures like this, but the crater
is quite large. The diameter is 4000 feet, which is around 4/5 of a
mile. It is currently 550 feet deep. For more details, visit
www.meteorcrater.com.
Possibly this view can lend some perspective to the size of the crater.
This is a picture from one end of the observation area looking across
towards the other end. The crater goes significantly deeper into
the ground and much, much farther to the right.
This was taken from the top of the crater rim, which rises up about
120 feet above the surrounding ground level. The mountains in the
distance are just north of Flagstaff, which is about 40 miles away.
In other words, that's a whole lot of nothing between here and there.
From the highest point of the observation area, at the very edge of
the uplifted crater rim, I snapped this photo. Even with my
wide-angle lens, that's as much of the crater as I could fit into one
picture. It's no Grand Canyon, but the Grand Canyon wasn't made in
a total elapsed time of 10 seconds.
This is the courtyard area outside the gift shop and snack bar. It's
actually quite a nice place to spend a little time. I had my lunch
of water and Cheetos out here. Probably what I found the most
interesting is the virtual picture frame in the wall, shown here on
the right. It's such a simple thing, but it adds so much more interest
than just having more brick wall.
I'm sure I've seen this kind of thing before, but this is probably
the most striking that I've come upon.
You can't read it in the small preview picture here, but if you click
on it, you can see in the larger version the text over the doorway:
"Country Store". Yes, I think that's the only gas station and
convenience store that I've seen that looks like that so far. I'm not
saying there aren't others, but that's certainly not normal.
Page Crated: 7-4-98