the grand canyon was sort of a let down. it seemed bigger in my memories. not that it isn't huge...

maybe it's just because the weather was bad. it was raining and visibility was bad. there was some mild thunder which made me uncomfortable.

we did a little hike to an overlook on the north rim and drove to another overlook, but that's about it.

we were going to drive around to the south rim, but when i found that meteor crater was nearby, we went there instead.

the drive around the grand canyon is a long one. we had to drive way up along the side until the cayon was only 100 meters or so across to find a bridge.

nearby, we found a tiny middle-of-nowhere "town" called black canyon to eat lunch in. the place was really nice. each of the outdoor tables had a big round glass cup full of water in which was floating a huge white rose. i don't know where they get the roses, but there they were.

a huge wind storm blew through as we were eating. we thought maybe a big storm was coming but it never came.

rounding the upstream end of the grand canyon, we headed south for flagstaff, then turned onto the interstate and headed east.

meteor crater is about half way across arizona from flagstaff, just south of the interstate. the area around it is flat and treeless. little green things grow here and there, but it's mostly a desert.

from the road, you can't really tell that it's a crater. it just looks like a hill. it's about a mile wide and maybe 4 stories tall. built into the side of the crater is a 3 story building which houses the visitor center and a museum. the museum was interesting. i wandered around in there while abie went to the bathroom.

then we went up over the rim of the crater.

it's difficult to get a read on the size of the crater from the side. it's clearly large. down in the middle there is some old equipment from when the apollo astronauts did some moonwalk training here.

there's a trail that goes around the rim which is 3.5 miles long. along the trail are telescopes for looking down into the crater. looking down at the center, there's a wooden cutout of an astronaut waving. it is life size. from the rim, you can't see the cutout with your naked eyes. that's how big the crater is.

after the meteor crater, we tried to go to the petrified forest, which is just down the road. unfortunately, we arrived too late. they had closed 10 minutes earlier.

so we made our way into new mexico and stopped for the night in grant. we got a small ratty motel room for the night.