Start:  Sedona, AZ
Destination: <a href="http://www.ci.gallup.nm.us/rrp/00182_redrock.html" target="_blank">Red Rock State Park Campground</a>, Gallup, NM
Odometer: 106,301 (start)  106,567 (end) – 266 miles
Date:  Wednesday, September 14, 2011

We arose before day-break and quietly broke camp by 5:50 without waking our youthful, late-arriving neighbors.

The drive that morning took us back north to Flagstaff and then east on route 40.  The landscape makes an abrupt shift after Flagstaff, from a hilly/mountainous and rocky desert to flat planes similar to the mid-west.  I  was driving and unfortunately didn't take pictures.

The original plan had us stopping at <a href="http://www.meteorcrater.com/" target="_blank">Meteor Crater,</a> but we began second-guessing ourselves that morning and decided to skip it in order to have more time at other spots.  The tickets were $15/person and felt we'd seen enough holes in the ground.  That is, until we were hit by their advertising campaign.  First, there is their radio station which airs a loop listing all the amazing attractions, from an actual piece of the meteor to having a Subway sandwich shop.  Then there are the billboards, listing facts about the meteor and the crater.  Lastly, there's just the uniqueness of the place as the "world’s best preserved meteorite impact site."  One of the guiding philosophies/rules of the trip was that we'd not have regrets of "oh, we should/could have done that, but didn't."  The closer we got to passing the crater, the more I felt that I would be felling that, and so I caved and made the turn onto Meteor Crater Road.

The drive to the crater is on a nice several-mile road, empty at that early hour of the morning, through flat grassland, leading towards what looks like an average hill.  As we'd eventually learn, that grassland was eviscerated 50,000 years ago and that hill is the rim of the giant crater.

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We arrived just as the ticket office was opening.  I bought the tickets (again, we benefited from a senior discount) and received an informational tri-fold.  I read this while Dad made some business phone calls.  I must say, this was a lengthy, but very well written tri-fold, that explained:  a) the science about the meteor, the impact, the resulting geology, and insights gained from it about the universe b) told the story of its discovery, mining attempts, controversy over what formed it, its use by NASA, and how/why it was turned into an attraction, and c) raised excitement about what we'd be able to see from the public vantage point and the Visitors Center.  As rare as the meteor is, it's also rare to find such a detailed yet readable pamphlet to a natural attraction.  I think my Dad still has it in his trip document folder if you're interested ;-)

When we entered the visitor center, we were informed that a short movie was going to be starting in a few minutes, so we headed towards the theater instead of the exit to the crater.  The film was neat, but I had already learned most of it from the pamphlet...which came in handy when answering the pre-film quiz questions.  The film did add better insights about how the crater helped improve scientific understanding of collisions and the role they play in the universe.

Finally, we were outdoors and standing atop the crater.  At first, it's rather unimpressive:  just a big hole in the ground.  Then the reality and scale sinks in:  more than three football fields with over 2 million spectators in the stands around the circumference could be held there, the spec at the base is the size of person, a boulder along the rim (pictured below) is the size of a house, and last but not least:  this whole thing wasn't caused by erosion, an earthquake, a volcano, or some terrestrial phenomenon, but from a rock, only 150' wide, from deep in the universe slamming into the ground just 50,000 years ago.  And just think, now it's next to a Subway - there's something either crass or poetic about this intersection of human civilization and the universe.

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We walked around the rim as much as we could, but we were fairly limited.  It would have been cool if an option to walk to the base of the crater were available, but there wasn't one yet.  This was made up for however in the visitor center where they had a real / non-replica piece of the crater that was eventually discovered.  And for some reason, there was also an Apollo Test Capsule on display.

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In all, we were glad that we stopped here. It's a pretty cool site and you can easily spend a few enjoyable hours seeing the crater and walking through the educational exhibits.   After our couple hours, we were ready for some breakfast and to get on with the trip to see the petrified forest and the painted desert.

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The Petrified Forest is one of the great American landscapes.  Now, many of the places we've gone to were priceless and couldn't be stolen by anyone other than Carmen Sandeigo.  At the Petrified Forest however, the thousands of pieces of tie-die colored petrified wood that form the landscape are also priceless, but also easily stolen by anyone.  Indeed, nearly every step one comes across a piece of petrified wood that would look great on one's mantle, in one's living room, or many other places around the house.  Apparently several tons are stolen each year (not sure how they really measure this), so there are checkpoints upon entering and exiting the park where cars are questioned and can be potentially searched.

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Some of the dinosaur fossils found in the muck were also on display.  I had never seen skeletal structures like these.

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We headed onto the next stop of the drive through the park which features more petrified wood.  For the most part, it was similar to what we had just seen, but this site had a nice hill, petrified wood that still looked like wood, and a clearer visualization of the muck that the petrified wood was in before it become uncovered for us all to see.

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Our time walking around this pleasant, pre-historic landscape was interrupted however by storm clouds that quickly emerged above and released its rain on us below.  The next couple hours would be an interesting mix of sites and extreme weather.

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We arrived at the Agate Bridge in time to be hailed upon.

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We arrived at the dunes to see a cloud opened up in the distance.

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And to the petroglyphs (images etched into rocks by people 650-2000 years ago) to see an intense cloud column formation.

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As we exited the park, we were able to see the accumulation of rain by means of the raging river that had now filled the previously dry river bed.

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The Petrified Forest was one of the highlights of the trip.  I had heard about this place and had seen petrified wood before, but experiencing the geology and formation in person was spectacular.  This is one of those places where one could spend the entire day taking pictures and still feel there was a lot that was missed.  Definitely add this to your list of places to visit.

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We then moved on from a colored forest to a colored desert.  The scenic drive through the Painted Desert takes ones along landscapes of incredible shades of pink.  It was very pleasant and unique, but its very monotonous and the hour was getting late, so we hurried through the drive.  Next stop:  Gallup, NM.

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The drive to Gallup was rather uneventful, with a flat landscape interspersed by impressive mesas and other rock formations.

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We arrived at the campground around 6 and settled in.  The campground is part of a state park and situated amongst red rock cliffs.  On the plus side, there's showers, nice scenery, and an inexpensive, informal payment process.  On the down side, the bathroom requires a key (which is easy to forget when hurrying to the bathroom in the morning), a lot of the scenery is blocked by trees unless you go into the park itself, and we had some anxiety about if, when, and how we'd be paying for the site.  Either way, we were settled in and it was time for dinner.

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We were low on food and had been going through the southwest for a while now, yet hadn't had any "authentic" mexican / tex-mex, so we opted to find such a restaurant and then stop at a supermarket.

We didn't have a restaurant in mind, so we relied upon the GPS.  The GPS listed dozens in the area of Gallup, so we decided to just drive downtown and see what we saw along the way.  Unfortunately, nothing stood out, so I choose one from the list and followed the GPS to a residential part of the city.  Now, for better or worse, not being from the area, it's hard to tell what is a bad part of town; however, the place we stopped did not seem particularly inviting, and not one to have much of  a vegetarian option, so I decided to call.  In short, it would not be where we were eating that night.  Hungry and a bit frustrated at not being able to find what I thought would be simple enough, we parked and I called down the list of options in the area according to the GPS.  Of the first 5, only one, <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-metate-tamale-factory-gallup" target="_blank">El Metate</a>, had the right answer and attitude:  when asked if they had vegetarian stuff and/or fish tacos, said yes and they could make whatever we'd like.  This seemed like a place to patronize so we reset the GPS and were on our way.

Again, we arrived to a residential part of town where the restaurant had parking in the back.  We were again a bit skeptical of the area, so we put our main valuables in my backpack and brought it in with us.  We received a friendly greeting from the waiter and a recognition that I was the one who had called earlier (fish tacos were now the special of the night).

Our review of the place is

at dinner time, we decided to go out for Tex-Mex...fill in the details
went to grocery store after dinner for provisions...not the best store

more rain arrived at 8:30 when we were going to sleep

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