Day 12

Day 12

Dan here…

Kari and I woke up early this morning, grabbed our complimentary breakfast, and headed west to see the famous meteor crater located about 45 miles east of Flagstaff, AZ. I had seen it in 1998 when I visited with a friend from Tennessee, Coach Thompson. It was pretty cool and I wanted Kari to see it. We got there early, grabbed admission tickets, and headed into the visitor center. We took our time at the visitor’s center. We walked around and saw the exhibits, watched a short film on the origins of the crater, and then followed a tour guide for about 20 minutes. He gave us a run down on the history and fun facts about the crater. We then walked around the crater for a short period of time. It is very cool to see. The crater is so big that the bottom can hold 20 football fields side by side. If you ever get the chance to visit it, I recommend it. You can’t see a more pristine example of a meteor crater on the planet earth than the one here. In the pictures below, you can see the same white square area at the base of the crater. If you look at the closeup, you can see a wood cutout of an astronaut standing beside the american flag. In the wide angle, you can get a perspective of the scale of the crater with the same white area.

After leaving the crater, we headed back to Flagstaff, AZ where we were going to turn south towards the town of Sedona, AZ. The drive to Sedona is beautiful. The windy road through the mountains opens up to reveal massive red rock cliffs. The contrast with the surrounding green trees makes for beautiful vistas. We traveled along the winding road until we reached the town of Sedona. The town is a small quaint place. It has many shops and trust me when I say that there isn’t a bad view in the city of the surrounding mountains. Everywhere you look is beautiful scenery. The town felt very clean. Kari and I drove around for a bit and eventually pulled over to do some shopping at a place that Gayle and Frank had recommended the day before. We went into a few shops. Kari found a very nice ring that she bought and I purchased a cactus. Yep… that’s right. I got a cactus that was growing in a read rock with brown deposits giving it a swirled look. I love my cactus. We eventually found a really great place to stop and eat. We took our time and relaxed in Sedona. It is one of those places that would be very easy to just lose a day relaxing and wondering around. It’s definitely worth a visit.

After leaving Sedona, Kari and I head north again to Flagstaff where we would turn west. We were now going to be driving all the way to Las Vegas, NV stopping by the Hoover Dam on the way. The drive took about 4 hours before reaching the dam. In the past few years, the route to Las Vegas has been moved from driving over the dam, to driving over a massive bridge built just beside the damn. The bridge was intentionally made so that you can’t see the dam as you drive over it. This is to prevent people from slowing down as you cross the bridge. But, you can stop in a parking lot after you cross the bridge and walk back across it to get a great view of the dam. Kari and I did this first. We walked along to about the middle of the bridge, so that we could get a bird’s eye view of the dam. It was very cool. The dam is as massive as you imagine. I couldn’t help but think that Sector 7 was still holding Megatron under there somewhere. I guess we’ll never know. After getting back to the car, we headed down to the bridge. The temperature was dropping from 110 degrees to 107 degrees and the sun was about to set. Welcome to Las Vegas, where the temperature doesn’t drop below 100 even after the sun goes down. We parked the car near the side of the bridge and got out to walk across the actual damn. It was very cool to see. The water level appeared to be incredibly low. You could see the water line in the cliffs surrounding the damn and the water was bout 60-70 feet below the line. We spent about a half hour on the bridge, walking all the way across and stopping to get lots of photos and videos. It was a cool thing to see, especially as the sun was setting.

After finishing at the dam, we got back in the car and headed to Vegas. It only took about a half hour to get to out hotel. We were staying at the MGM Grand on the strip. We had a room for 2 nights and planned on relaxing and enjoying it. After so many consecutive days of traveling and full itineraries each day, it was going to be a welcomed change to be able to sleep in and do whatever we wanted. After checking in, we walked around the MGM and found a restaurant of Wolfgang Puck’s and sat down to have dinner. We spent an hour or so eating and polishing of a bottle of wine, got up and played a few slots, and called it a night. We had a lot of sleeping ahead! Goodnight!