From Sedona, we went to Meteor Crater, which is an impact crater created about 50,000 years ago by a meteor hitting the earth. The crater is 550 feet deep and 4,000 feet across. The meteor that created it is estimate to have had a diameter of about 150 feet.  Pat called it a "big hole in the ground"; I guess we have different perspectives on what is interesting.








The four of us at Meteor Crater. Ed must be standing in a hole and I seem to have the uphill advantage, since Ed is actually taller than me.







Our final stop on the way to Albuquerqe was Petrified Wood National Park. Ed is sizing up this piece of petrified wood. 225 million years ago, this area was a tropical floodplain. Tall trees grew in the area, and upon dying and falling to the ground became buried in a mixture of silt, mud, and volcanic ash. Silica-laden groundwater seeped into the logs, and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits, which crystallized into quartz, preserving the logs as petrified wood.









This pronghorn eyed us warily while grazing near the park road.