California Here We Come - Day Five

We had an ambitious schedule today and I'm exhausted so this post is going to be mostly pictures.

Our first stop was Meteor Crater. This first photo is in a courtyard. I loved the "window" which gave you some perspective about the countryside in which the meteor landed.

We saw a movie about the meteor/science of the crater and then took an hour long guided walk along the rim around a quarter of the way around the crater. Our guide was fantastic and not only gave us the history of the human interactions with the crater but also about the geology.

I've become amazingly unafraid of rock-climbing and heights in my old age. The last part of the walk was climbing on rocks to the edge of the crater. It was totally cool and the beauty of the rocks was incredible.

The wind died down today and the temperature was perfect!

Following Meteor Crater we drove to Sunset Crater National Monument. Sunset

Crater was formed from an erupting volcano around 1064. I have never seen lava fields and this was mind-blowing. The photos don't really show the lava but it was really diverse ranging from rock formations, large rocks, small pebbles, to fine sand.

Sunset Crater and Wupataki National Monuments were connected by an 18 mile beautiful drive in National Park Service property. The scenery was varied and included many views of the Painted Desert in the distance. There were acres of these light yellow grass meadows. I have no idea of whether the grasses were dried or flourishing. I just know that it was incredibly beautiful!

Wupataki National Monument contained several ruins of Native
American Pueblos that dated from 500-1200 a.d. We were able to climb among some of the ruins. It was hard to conceive that people lived here during and after the volcano eruption. 

 We then drove to Williams, AZ which took about 90 minutes. It is here that we will board the Grand Canyon Railway tomorrow morning for our ride to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I'm told that there is no internet access in the hotel rooms there so I will not be sending a blog post tomorrow night. We've seen so much beauty, I can't imagine what it will be like to see the canyon in person. I'll let you know!