South Rim Grand Canyon National Park, Meteor Crater Natural Monument, Hoover Dam
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Turned out to be pretty chilly this morning. Not anything like in Wyoming but it brought back memories. Luckily I learned how to lie in a sleeping bag for maximum warmth and I had cleverly put my coat in the tent the night before. We had a quick meal of oatmeal (how do people eat this stuff) and pop tarts (yum!) and headed for the south side.
Now the south side is approximately 5 miles away as the crow flies. Fortunately for the crows, they don’t need a bridge across the Colorado River to get there. Unfortunately, we did and the nearest one is 100 miles away in Cameron. We headed back north to Jacob Lake, then east for awhile to get there. On the way we passed the Vermilion Cliffs which are both and quite pretty.
We crossed the Colorado River on a little one lane bridge that’s next to the new and improved bridge they’re building. It was actually pretty neat to see how they were doing it. I have only seen pictures of bridges in that stage of completion. They had the two sides finished and were putting the center section in.
We were now on the Navajo Indian reservation, which meant two things. One, no speed limit (at least no enforcement as far as we could see), and two, endless roadside stands selling “genuine Indian jewelry”. We stopped at one so Les could buy necklaces for his daughters. Unfortunately for me, Daniel doesn’t wear necklaces, and Marion isn’t a big fan of cheap Indian jewelry. I’ll have to keep looking.
We skirted along the edge of the Painted Desert. There were sand dunes in lavender and white. Not nearly as colorful as many of the rocks and canyons we’d seen but pretty nice.
We exited the reservation just as the National Forest started. Les commented how typical it was that the Indians got the desert and the government got the forest. “Here, live here where there’s no water, no game and no way to farm. We’ll be just over this hill in the forest if you need anything.”
The scenery started getting interesting as we got closer to the Park. The Little Colorado River (which didn’t seem to have any water in it) had created a nice little canyon of it’s own on the way in.
We arrived at the “Desert View” viewpoint, the first one on the south side and went to have a look. The scenic beauty sensors went critical immediately. The sky was partly cloudy and the clouds were casting all sorts of interesting shadows across the canyon and on the various buttes. It’s hard to describe how big this thing is. It’s huge, massive. You look at a “small” area to try to get a grip on it, then you see a tree or a person or something and realize that this one part is bigger than Bryce Canyon.
The views were so amazing that I’m sure I took many of the same pictures twice. I’d look at something, take a picture, then wander over somewhere else and look for awhile. When I got back I’d still be so impressed with the view I’d take the picture again! We worked our way down the canyon stopping at all the viewpoints and taking pictures. After awhile it did start looking a little the same and we started stopping at every other viewpoint.
Finally as the day went on, we realized we wouldn’t make the Meteor Crater if we didn’t leave soon. We wanted to get to the end of the road (at Hermit’s Rest) so we managed to drive the last 5 miles or so only stopping about 3 times for pictures.
We stopped at the Grand Canyon Lodge to call the Meteor Crater and find out when it closed. We stopped at the desk to ask about Phantom Ranch, the place at the bottom of the canyon where you stop if you’re hiking across or taking a mule trip. The lady told us it was pretty much universally booked. You can book it 11 months in advance and when the window opens up for a new month, it usually fills up in 45 minutes!
Les asked if you could hike across in one day. It’s about 20 miles. 2 of it straight down and 2 of it straight up. She said people had done it but tended to spend the next day in bed barfing their guts up and wishing they hadn’t. Sounds like fun to me.
At 2:30 we were at the end of the south rim road, 130 miles from the Meteor Crater. We had to get there by 5 pm. to see it. We figured we’d need to be in Flagstaff by 4 pm. to be sure. The road out of the park is single lane and filled with scenic beauty seekers. This made it a little tough to average the 60 plus miles per hour we’d need to get there. I passed them as best I could until we got to Williams and the good old Interstate Highway System. It was 4:10 when we reached Flagstaff with 40 miles to go.
We threw the engines into overdrive and went racing off at warp 7.5 (75 mph). On the way we passed the 5000 mile mark but we couldn’t stop for celebrations just then. We were off the highway on to Meteor Crater Road at 4:45. 6 miles to go on single lane blacktop. We came screaming up to the monument gates at 4:52 where we were chastised by the ranger-like person attempting to close the gates. “You boys should take it more easy on them curves.” “Yes, we’re sorry, but we didn’t want to miss this. We’ve driven 5000 miles to get here.” (Hound dog expressions)
He not only let us in, but let us park in the normally pedestrians only courtyard right in front! After paying the $7.00(!) entry fee (I mean, it’s just a hole in the ground when it’s all said and done), we took a quick wander through the museum and headed out to the crater rim. A nice breeze of about 65 miles per hour was blowing which added just the right other-worldly element needed.
The crater is pretty impressive. It’s 3 miles around the rim, 4100 feet across and 570 feet deep. The Washington Monument would fit in it and not peek over the edge. But, unfortunately, we had just come from the biggest, baddest hole in the ground there is and try as I might, I couldn’t work up a reasonable level of amazement for this for quite some time.
When we went back inside and started looking at some of the aerial pictures where you could see the size of the building we were in relative to the crater, it started to sink in some. Then, when I went back to look at it and Les pointed out the wooden figure of an astronaut at the impact point (see that little tiny white dot down there), it finally had some effect. This thing moved 300 million tons of earth out of this hole in less than 10 seconds. That guy up in South Dakota was still working on 10 million tons after 50 years!
So in the end it was pretty cool. We bought some stuff in the gift shop much to the displeasure of the disgruntled staff who wanted to go home, but when were we going to be back? I got Daniel a fossil of a fish. We had traveled probably a thousand miles from the prime fossil country in the U.S., only to buy fossils in the Meteor Crater Gift Shop. Oh well.
On the way back to the highway we stopped on a dirt road for the 5000 mile photos. As we were doing that the sun was setting behind a mountain in the distance. We stayed an extra 20 minutes photographing that and the clouds.
It was now time for the official turn towards home. Once we hit the freeway again we were officially homeward bound. That’s kind of a weird feeling after all this driving. And we still have quite a ways to go so it’s not like it’s over or anything but there was a certain element of “closing night” feeling that came over us.
We stopped in Flagstaff at the Taco Bell for dinner. Our first fast food since the day we left. Seemed fitting somehow now that we were headed home. I’m typing this as Les drives us to Las Vegas for the night. That’s a new twist for the journal entry. There are thunderstorms off in the distance that occasionally light up the sky with lightning but we haven’t had much more than a few drops of rain.
About 100 miles from Las Vegas we could already see a glow on the horizon from the lights. Amazing. We crossed Hoover Dam in the dark. It was still pretty impressive.
We stopped just past the dam at the El Sleazmo Hotel and Casino where the rooms were $19.99 and breakfast was $1.29.
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