Crater and Dam, Hello Vegas

I had gone to sleep in the Walmart parking lot at 2:30 am and was hoping to sleep in a little later. Unfortunately, when the sun comes up and you're in a car with windows, it's hard to sleep much past dawn. I pulled a shirt over my face and squeezed out another 45 minutes of sleep before getting up a little groggy. After a caffeinated revival at the local coffee shop I hit the road for the Meteor Crater outside Winslow. I had been to the crater before as a little kid but I wanted to check it out with adult eyes.

The crater is privately owned but they've done a really good job with the museum there. It's the best preserved meteor crater in the world, partly due to the low moisture of the Arizona desert not eroding the sides, as well being relatively young at "only" 50,000 years old. It's an incredibly massive landmark and you can see how much the rim arose from the flat desert as you drive up the side to the parking lot. They even have a real piece of the meteor our on display for you to touch. It was cool to touch it but also reminded me of stalactites and stalagmites in caves where they used to let tourists touch and break off pieces. Hopefully one day the park service will get a hand on it and be able to preserve it because already many of the features on the top of this meteorite are smoothed down from people touching it. I watched the movie, walked with the tour down to the observation deck a short distance within the crater, and was awed by its size. The crater has been used by NASA for moon walk equipment tests and several other experiments and the history of these outings was fun to see in the museum.

 After a bit I got a sandwich and hit the road, encountering a quick but exciting rain storm that did a good job of washing off the car. Several uneventful hours passed as I continued to get deeper into Steinbeck's East of Eden, which by now had become one of my favorite books ever. Eventually I got to the Arizona - Nevada state line and crossed the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. It was completed in 2010 and caused me to completely pass by Hoover Dam without realizing it, since the concrete sidewalls are tall to block the speedy winds coming down the canyon.

I pulled over and walked out on the bridge which provided a spectacular view of Hoover Dam. Then on my return took the last unique state sign picture of the trip. I drove down to the Dam and across it, parking on the other side to get out and walk across it as well. The dam is enormous and looking down the face of it was a bit daunting. It's been described as one of the engineering marvels of the world and I have to agree. Did you know the concrete at the center is still hardening and there's enough of it to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York? Yes, it's pretty impressive.

I walked back and hopped in the car, Vegas bound. Once I got there I picked up the bachelor, Adrian, and another friend Chris and we went to the hotel. I'll leave the rest for another post...