Two giant holes in the ground, one of which is substantially larger and more famous

8/31:

This morning I headed east out of Flagstaff to Meteor Crater. I had never heard of this place but Bryan told me it was a must-see - and so it was! Meteor Crater is apparently the largest proven impact crater in the world that can be visited. The meteorite that caused the crater was approximately 150ft in diameter, which translated into quite a large hole when it hit Earth at 26,000 miles per hour. Because it hit in such a stable arid region, the crater is not susceptible to erosion or fracturing that could damage it - and so it is preserved in almost the exact state that it was in thousands of years ago after the meteorite hit.

Pictures can't do this thing justice. It's really very huge and really has a lot of super awesome geology. The museum on the rim of the crater does an excellent job of explaining the forces at work during the impact and what caused it to look the way it does today. But I'm not going to explain that; instead, I'm going to provide you all with two pretty underinspiring pictures of what is really something very fantastic.

For reference, the little black dot in the center of the white ring at the bottom of the crater is a 15 foot tall boiler

Using myself for scale is not really very useful in this context

I did take some pictures to stitch into a panorama later which will hopefully be more awe-inspiring, but until then you'll just have to take my word for it that this place is really, really cool. But maybe that's the geology nerd in me speaking!

Anyways, from there I swung back through Flagstaff and then headed north to the king of all Arizonan parks - the Grand Canyon. By the time I got there it was afternoon so I just spent a couple of hours wandering around the rim oohing and aahing. I had a campsite down in Williams to return to (no camping spots available in Grand Canyon itself because of Labor Day tourism) so I was a little limited on time. Regardless, the Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring whether you look at it for 30 seconds or a few hours or a few days. So here's a few pictures that do it absolutely no justice, though they do try and succeed better than the Meteor Crater pictures:

Hanging out on a ledge at the very rim of the canyon

Pretty terrifying!

Tomorrow I will come up from Williams and spend another couple of days at Grand Canyon. I intend to hike around and see as much of the South Rim as possible! I came here around a decade ago as a child and now, being back, it is just as awesome as I recall. It will be very cool to see what is the same and what is different. For now, Kelly signing out - more adventures tomorrow!!