Well it was a Mobil Station, and it looked mobile enough!
But, proceeding on, we then traveled about six miles down the road, saw
the crater rim in the distance, and finally arrived. it's a very distinctive
crater profile from the high plains. Bob said that it was the most unusual
thing about the place, that he had seen so many images from the rim and
from the air, but none from outside at ground level. So I'm going to make
that the "Picture of the Week" - next week.
The Barringer Crater is privately owned. Barringer bought it in the late
1800's, and spent most of his life and fortune proving it was really a
meteor crater. And searching for a huge ball of valuable nickel-iron. It
wasn't there - the energy of impact was enough to fragment and vaporize
the meteor, His descendants were so sick of it all that they tried to give
it back to the gov't as a park. The gov't refused, claiming it was just
another volcanic crater. There is some logic to their refusal - the crater
is
surrounded by dozens of cinder cones and craters - what
are the odds that there will be an impact crater right in the middle of
those, many of which were
already national parks? The USGS
claimed it was just a big steam vent...
Eventually the Barringer family, along with some local ranchers, formed
a corporation for tourism, and they own and operate the site to this day.
They do an
excellent job - it's as good as any state or national park
I've ever been to, and the food was better!
And so, without further ado, here is a shot from the crater rim, pieced
together from four separate shots. ( The original is about 5MB, I'll have
to figure some way to post it....)
A panoramic view of Barringer Meteor Crater, Arizona
You can't really get a sense of the size of this object from a picture.
It's sort of like the Grand Canyon in that respect. It's not as big as the
latter, but it's big enough that you keep losing your sense of scale. The
hole is about six hundred feet deep I think, though it'd be deeper if a lot
of it is the deposits blown up into the sky had not fallen back in.
You can stand inside, in air conditioned comfort, or walk out onto any
of several viewing areas/decks/projections. There are a number of little
telescopes that allow you to view various things around the crater. One telescope
focuses on a little silhouette of an astronaut ( many of the Apollo
astronauts to the moon trained here )down at the center of the crater. It's
life size, and basically invisible without the telescope. Scale again.
Astronaut and moon sized flag at crater's center,
photo taken through telescope
The crater is a bit under a mile across, and so about three miles around.
You can take a guided tour for about a half mile out to the site of Barringer's
old cabin, now mostly fallen apart. Old time visitors will remember
it as the old Gift Shop.We did and it was a lot of fun. Our guide was fun,
and the we the usual tourists ( Families from Indiana, Empty Nesters in their
RV's, Newlyweds from Jersey trying to keep their hands off each other, and
so on...) all enjoyed Eduardo's little talk. We were not supposed to keep
any souvenir bits, but my brother found a small pebble in his shoe when we
got back to the car - much to our later consternation.
Walking out along the crater's rim
After spending several hours viewing the crater, we drove
east, to
Winslow, Arizona
, for lunch. Yes,
that Winslow of the Eagle's song. We even drove
past the corner the song refers to - 2nd and Kinsley. There's an official
picture at the link above. Sorry, my camera wasn't ready... We thought about
stopping, but there were a lot of one way streets, and we just ended up
at the local Arby's near the interstate. Oh well.
East of Winslow is The
Petrified Forest
National Park
, rather interesting. Mostly it is overlooks and vista's, and lots and
lots of warnings about removing anything from the park. That's where Bob's
pebble from the meteor crater comes in -
what if they'd searched us and
found it? You see, when you enter, they ask you - "Do you have any petrified
wood or rock on your person or in the vehicle?" My brother, sharing the
family trait of being a smart*** at inappropriate times, immediately replied
"Not yet". He claims not to even remember saying it. Remember the
pebble from the Meteor Crater? I was sure they were going to radio ahead
to the exit and have us strip searched, find
that, and end up in the
park brig...
The 'Agate Bridge', a petrified log
One interesting stop was the 'Agate Bridge', which is a petrified log, spanning
a small gully. The 'bridge' has been known for a century or so, and at some
time in the past a couple of bridge abutments and a reinforcement beam were
added to keep it from collapsing. The park service is in something of a quandary
- does it preserve things in a certain condition, or let them change, evolve,
even if that means disintegration of a tourist attraction? They seem to have
come down on the side of 'let it happen' for the most part. They aren't
undoing past efforts, but gently deride them... Except for people - we are
not considered an 'natural process' and so souvenirs are verboten.
But the tourists of the last 135 years have mostly cleared out the good stuff
anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.
After this we went back to the meteor crater, and then back to Flagstaff
for dinner and a motel. The Hampton Inn was better than the Days Inn.
Travels and Images
