Day 23 – Such a fine sight to see!
Started our day in Winslow, Arizona. First went to McDonalds for a quick breakfast, but more importantly for a good WiFi connection. The connection at the Motel 6 was poor and definitely not good enough to restore my iPad. (Oops, I had wiped it Sunday evening!) We have decided that we are definitely 3G at a minimum people. Gotta have that connectivity these days!
Got everything fixed and headed for a corner and a flat-bed Ford. (It’s a must-do for Eagles fans!)
Then a short drive to Meteor Crater. This crater is about 600 feet deep and about
a mile in diameter. A meteor crashed here about 50,000 years ago, crashing at an estimated 26,000 miles an hour. Mona had visited here about 50 years ago and she’s been telling me about it ever since I met her because she thought I’d love it. She was right! This is like standing on a crater on the moon. In fact, astronauts trained here before landing on the moon. This is a very coolplace to learn about meteors and see a crater first hand!
Some fun facts:
Petrified trees are found throughout the world and in all 50 U.S. states.
The opening of Route 66 created a great problem for the Petrified Forest, because of all the new tourists who wanted souvenirs.
Even though the Crystal Forest seems like it has lots of trees, old photographs show that this is just a small remainder of what once was here. The rest has been carried off for souvenirs.
People are still stealing pieces of the forest. It’s estimated that about a ton of rocks is stolen each month. (Note: We didn’t even pick up a pebble!)
Moving On:
As the caption states, it’s time to move on. We reluctantly leave the forest and head east. We’re going to Gallop, New Mexico and then we’ll turn north for Cortez, Colorado.
On the way, we tune into a Navajo radio station. The announcers all speak Navaho and the music is new country, old country (e.g. Hank Williams) and Navajo chants. This is a great station!
We rolled into Cortez around 6:00 PM. Checked into our hotel and headed for Tequila’s. After all of today’s driving it was truly another fine sight to see!
Of note: Saw our first herd of long-horned cattle today! Also, saw a license plate with “Santos” on it. The vehicle gave us the impression that it was from South America, but we still haven’t figured out which country. Still have not seen any plates from: Rhode Island, West Virginia and New Hampshire. Where are those people!?!?!
About 9:30 we noticed that the room clock said it was 10:30. Darn! We forgot that Colorado observes Day Light Savings Time so we lost an hour at Four Corners. Actually, we lost it when we went from Arizona to New Mexico, gained it again when we returned to Arizona, then lost it again when we walked over to Colorado. Damn confusing!!!! Time for bed!
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