The desert is amazing for a few different reasons, but one of the most amazing things is that you can see forever. There are no hills in the way, no trees, no houses, at least out on the road there aren't, and you can just see everything.
Which meant that we could see the huge black clouds piling up - don't know what direction they were coming from, but they were building off of one edge of the crater when we got there, and the lightning was spectacular. The wind, I kid you not, was the strongest and scariest I'd ever experienced. We were locking up the truck when a huge gust like the hand of God came roaring past and all we could do was just huddle against the door and weather it. That happened a few more times when we were on the edge of the crater, and if you don't think it's scarier than piss standing 550 feet above nothingness with only a rail to hold on to while the wind tries to pull your child out of your hands, guess again. I held on to her so tight and was so paranoid about it that I finally had to tell her I needed HER help because I was a shaky old grandma and couldn't make it down by myself. After that she was a hoot: "Are you holding on tight, Mommy? I'll help you, Mommy, because I'm Wonderwoman and you're a shaky old grandma." I have no pride, I admit it. I milked it.
Elise wasn't afraid of the lightning or the thunder, at first. We looked up at it and thought it was cool, but as we climbed to the tallest observation deck for the crater, we could hear the ranger talking to his boss on the radio about closing the deck because the lightning was getting closer.
As soon as he said that, a chill went through my body and I took a good look around at the fact that where we were standing, we really were the tallest things around for miles and miles. Add to that the fact that, according to the ranger, we were also standing on top of a huge metal water tank buried just beneath us...
I took a few panorama pictures, but then I grabbed Elise and we got off that platform. We then hit the lower platform where there were a number of telescopes to look down into the crater. Elise really liked that and she tired out my arms by making me hold her up to look through them.
Here's some info straight from the pamphlet they gave us:
"This crater was formed by the impact of an iron-nickel meteorite impacting into the high arid plains of the Colorado Plateau about 50,000 years ago. The body, estimated to have been about 50 meters in diameter and weighing several hundred thousand metrics tons, was traveling on the order of about 15 kilometers per second and impacted with a kinetic energy of some 30-40 megatons of TNT equivalent. The result of the collision was to form, in just a second or so, a large bowl-shaped crater 1.2 kilometers across and over 150 meters deep. Nearly 100 million tons of rock was thrown out to form a continuous ejecta blanket around the crater."
We got back to the car as the first of the rain drops were hitting, and the thunder was getting to be truly awesome at that point, which is just about the moment that Elise began to realize that she was scared of thunder and lightning after all, but mostly thunder. It was really sad! She asked for my coat so she could hide under it while she was in her car seat, but of course I couldn't drive with her that way since she'd get car sick in an instant, so I got on the phone to Jeff again and here's the point where our headlong dash for home truly began. It's kind of sad, when I think back, that the meteor crater was really the end of our trip. After that, it was all pretty much a driving nightmare. For me, anyway. For Elise, it was a sleeping, feeling headachey and sick nightmare. I probably had the easier part, poor little baby.
After the rain let up a bit and Elise was able to take the coat off her head, we just started to drive.
From Gallup, NM to Flagstaff, where I stopped to try and find a cheap hotel... stupid me, hello, RESORT TOWN... cheapest hotel in town, $149... which may or may not have been bull but I decided not to try to comparison shop and we left. A little bit further down the road to Williams, AZ - 218 miles away from Gallup. Quick stop in Williams for fuel, and to change clothes because by then it was miserably cold and we were still in our shorts and t-shirts, then on for as long as I could stand it...
Sometime after Williams, we crossed over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line, but I only know that from looking at the map now. I had no idea then.
We made a stop of a few hours at a Truck Stop, but I can't remember where it was. I know we hadn't left Arizona next, and I think it was after Albuquerque, but other than that I couldn't say. I think we weren't more than an hour from the California border. We slept there for a bit, mostly because I had no choice. I made a pretty comfy bed out of the drivers seat, Elise put her head on my lap, and we managed to catch a few winks that way. I woke up sometime around 2am, I think... there's no way to know for sure because my time sense was so completely disarranged by that time... Texas, Central time, is two hours ahead of California and Arizona, Mountain time, is only one. My cell phone clock said one time, the clock in the truck, still set to Texas, said another, and my body was just going twelve ways from sunday trying to figure out what to do with itself... I moved the car seat to the front of the truck, which has no airbags, propped the suitcase under Elise's feet like a lounge chair, and we started driving again.
Oh, and that truckstop, wherever it was, holds one distinction that I will not soon forget: they had the worst coffee I have ever tasted in my life! I mean, the friggin' worst muddy water - as desperate as I was to stay awake, I could not bring myself to swallow it, even when it was still hot. The carafe had a sign on it: "truckers coffee". Somebody should go shake the hands of every trucker who ever kept the goods of our great country moving on such nasty stuff!!! Ay Caramba!
(In a quick note: I've just now remembered that the truck stop was just outside of Kingman, AZ - I think it was "Love's")
Click HERE to find out about the Meteor Crater
Love's Travel Plazas - Just don't drink the coffee!:
Tomorrow, California, AT LAST!!
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