I Was Mooned By a Meteor Crater!

Aww Man:/

Today we went to the Meteor Crater in Arizona!  It was way way cool.  Much cooler than I thought a hole in the ground could be.  I expected a very chintzy, touristy place but that's not what I got!

Tommy and I in front of the Apollo Test Capsule!

This place was coo-ell!  They had an astronaut park outside and were doing renovations to make it even better!  Now this is not owned by the government but the people that own and operate it have put considerable thought into what to add.

Basket Meteor

  When we walked in we immediately saw a chunk of the  meteor that helped form the crater.  They called it the basket meteor and it has an interesting history.  Seems it was stolen at one point and then later rediscovered at an estate sale.

Unzoomed view of rim with house sized rock - can you see it?

We went out onto the rim and explored a bit.  The crater was huge but didn't look as big as it actually was.  It was a mile across.     I took a couple of pictures to give perspective.  One is of the rim that is not zoomed focusing on a rock in the distance.  The other is a zoomed view of a HOUSE sized rock.

House sized rock on rim.. zoomed

Tommy and I on the rim

  They have an informative video on how the meteor crater formed and how they can tell it's not a volcanic crater.  Evidently the astronauts who went to the moon trained there so they could differentiate between volcanoes and meteor craters.

 

Eddie our tour guide expanding upon the geology of the meteor.

When the movie ended, we took a guided "tour".  The tour consisted of going 1/4 of a mile on the rim of the crater and listening to the guide talk about science stuff.  Our guide was Eduardo or Eddie.  He was the head tour guide and was really enthusiastic and knowledgeable.  He gave a lot of into in a short time and then took our pictures standing on the rim.

After we came in from our 30 minute tour.  Trust me, 30 minutes in the Arizona heat was more than enough.  We went into the museum.  Lots of stuff to look at but we pretty much got it all from the video and the tour.  We did manage to see another piece of the meteor that caused the hole.  We even got to touch it!  94 percent iron, 5 percent nickel and 1 percent of other minerals.  It looked like you could pick it up until you read that it weighed 1500 pounds! 

1500 pound meteor!

Tommy and I had gone to the upper and lower viewing platforms and taken several pictures.  The crater itself is 570 feet deep and to give you some scale, the white circle you see in pictures of the crater has a fence surrounding it and a six foot astronaut holding an
American Flag on the fence.  You cannot see it with the naked eye.  !!

Look closely.

 We took several photos of the Meteor Crater.  Tommy and I , Mom and Tommy, me by myself.  We sat and looked at the crater for a while and I noticed something in the distance.  If you look over my shoulder you should be able to see it.  It is also apparent in this picture of Mom and Tommy.  This fufills my belief that God truly has a wicked sense of humor.  It appears that the Crater is mooning us!

Look over mom's shoulder in the distance.

 You gotta find humor in everything;)

Close up of the offending piece of the crater.