Southwest Road Trip - Day Three

We had a big day of driving today so I got the boys up earlying so we could have breakfast and still get on the road by 7:30am. New Mexico is on Mountain time while Arizona does not do Day Light Savings to they are an hour earlier, so the boys were a bit groggy as we started our drive. Our first destination is the Four Corners Monument, where the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona all come together in a single point. Nik and Alex took turns posing with each limb in a different state, pretty cool. The photo at right shows the boys standing on the platform of the four corners. Since this is on Navajo Nation tribal land, it is a big money maker for the people. Alex got a cool Navajo ring and neckless, and Nik bought a refrigerator magnet of showing the four states.

Next stop, Wupatki National Monument. Located between the Painted Desert and Sunset Crater National Monument, Wupatki was a thriving Anasazi village. When the Sunset Crater Volcano erupted 800 years ago it buried much of the village in volcanic ash forcing the people to leave. Years later they returned and rebuilt the village, farming the newly enriched soil left behind by the volcano. There are several ruins from the village still in almost perfect condition. There is a virtual Geocache called Wupatki at the Wukoki or "Big House". We were able to walk around inside this amazing structure which is located on a large rock slab with an great view of the Painted Desert to the east and the snow covered San Francisco Peaks to the west.

Our final stop on this busy day was the Meteor Crater impact site and museum, located about 35 miles east of Flagstaff, AZ. At this location approx 50,000 years ago, a huge iron-nickle meteorite slammed into the Arizona desert with an explosive force than 20 million tons of TNT. The result of the impact was a huge bowl shaped crater over 4,000 feet across and 700 feet deep. This site was used by NASA during the Apollo missions to train the moon walkers how to cope with the crater filled environment of the moon. On display in the museum was a 3 foot long piece of the meteor, the largest piece ever found. Running his hand over it, Alex remarked how cool it was to touch something that could have come from another galaxy, on the other side of the solar system. This place with one of the trip highlights for both Nik and Alex.