Holy Meteor Crater Batman!

I hear my daughter up and about at 06:00. This is unheard of, at least four or five hours too early.

She's up because we are off on an Arizona Adventure.

We stop at the local McDonald's for a coffee and McMuffin, actually the first time I've eaten there since returning from Tonga. We peruse a WalMart road atlas and decide that today will be a visit to Winslow Arizona.

We cruise up I17 towards Flagstaff. As we go we gain altitude. Terrain changes from Saguaros to shrub junipers to flat dry expanses with nothing bigger than a weed. Volcanic mountains leap from the flat plains, many still sport expanses of snow, a sight for those of us used to 115 degree heat.

We head east following the route of the infamous Route 66. We turn at Meteor Crater road. In we drive across a flat red martian landscape. A prairie dog stands to watch us, then bolts for his burrow.

Ahead is a gray ridge rising from the red expanse. It is the ejecta from the crater.

We pay our $30 each and explore the museum and take a walk around part of the rim with a local guide. Most of the employees are Navajo. I am happy being surrounded by big brown friendly tattooed people again.

The crater is huge. The Washington Monument could stand in the bottom and not poke out the top. For a hundred years the consensus of the world's geologists was that it was a volcanic crater like the others in the area. A mining engineer found evidence that eventually proved that it was an impact crater, but the scientific community called him a fool for fifty years because they has a consensus. Sound familiar?

NASA trained the Apollo astronauts here and still trains their new astronauts in the crater.

The impact released the equivalent of 20 megatons of energy. Not too far up the road in New Mexico is another crater, this one at the Trinity Site. This is where the first atom bomb was tested. It released about one thousandth of the energy of the meteor. We are disappointed that we can't go stand in that crater, but it is only open two days a year, so that will have to wait until October.

Arizona Desert

It rained here a few weeks ago and the desert is blooming. The cactus in the foreground is a fishhook barrel. That is a saguaro in the background.
Here's a fishhook barrel flower up close and personal.
This is one of the trails that leads to the gnarly singletrack I bike.
Well, this is the American west. The desert is full of shells, including these from assault rifles. Go second amendment!
Lots of big boulders for Jason to climb.


Camelback Mountain - Look close in the center of the photo and you'll see a Chuckwalla lizard sunning on a rock. I am a kindred spirit with these lizards.

Another shot on Camelback. Again, look at the silhouette on the rock at the top. Zoom in and you'll see another Chuckwalla.

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I am living the life. It doesn't get much better than this.

I'm sure I'll eventually gt bored and feel the need for some jet setting, but for now I'm really enjoying the chance to get back in shape after Tonga. I'm still amazed how good it is to take a shower where the water is clean and goes down the drain. The other thing is how dry it is here. Even when I sweat like a puaka I'm still dry. No problems with fungus here. I think the Peace Corps should send Bria here for rehab.

I've been climbing a local "mountain" a few times a week, and mountain biking way out in the desert on other days. Camelback Mountain is in the middle of the Phoenix area and is covered with hikers when its cool. I like to climb in the afternoon and there is almost no one there.

I mountain bike in the Sonoran Mountain Preserve at Pima and Dynamite roads. Parts of this are civilized and parts are really remote.

I've included some pictures for your viewing pleasure. Click on them for lots of detail, unless you're in Tonga, there they'll take to long to load!