Meteor Crater, Walnut Canyon National Monument, Sunset Crater National Monument, Wuptaki National Monument, Sonoma and Tuzigoot National Monument
Day 2 (April 1)
- From Winslow we headed back east to Meteor Crater and spent a good amount of time there and got plenty of pictures. Did you know the meteor vaporized as it hit the surface of the earth so no meteor fragments (except microscopic pieces) were ever found...Also did you know this is one of the areas where astronauts trained for the moon landing.After Meteor Crater we headed further east to Walnut Creek Canyon NM (National Monument). This is a canyon where Native Americans had lived in small buildings they built into the side of the canyon. The trail in the canyon led to one of the small buildings where you could explore. This was up at about 7,000 feet so you had trees and a fairly respectable climate (no deserts here). They said we might see Mountain Lions on the walk, but we didn't see any.
After Walnut Creek Canyon we headed north to Sunset Crater NM, which is a volcanic cinder cone field that last erupted about a 1,000 years ago or so. It is very interesting, but you are not allowed to climb up on the cinder cones because you will knock the cinders down. So all we did was walk around the lava flows, which do look like they just cooled off.
Then following Sunset Crater NM we headed further north to Wuptaki National Monument, another Native American pueblo ruin. We didn't have all that much time so we didn't spend that much there.
From Wuptaki we went north to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park and entered the park and then stopped at several of the points and views along the road to Grand Canyon Village. We found the village and Mather Campground, where we were staying and set up our tent and got ready for bed.
Last Updated on February 22, 2003 - webmaster@jeffandmoe.net