07/11: Grand Canyon Here we Come
Category: General
Posted by: The Agnew Family
What a day! We stood on the corner in Winslow Arizona, walked the rim of a meteor crater and saw the Grand Canyon. OK, nothing earth shattering but we really enjoyed the day.
Well, I’m a standing on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me
Do these lyrics ring a bell? It’s from the hit song “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. Ed remembered the lyrics and when he saw Winslow, Arizona on the map he decided we needed to go there. Not much to the town but they are definitely making the most of the song.
Route 66 is Winslow's main street.
50,000 years ago a meteor hurtling at about 26,000 miles per hour struck the unbroken plane. The meteor is estimated to have been 150 feet across and weighed several hundred thousand tons. The impact was so powerful that the meteor disintegrated on impact resulting in a crater 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across. Meteor fragments were found miles from the site. In 1902 Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer, became interested in the crater as a potential site for mining iron (meteors are full of iron) and obtained the patents and ownership of the two square miles of the crater. He never did find iron as the meteor had melted on impact but his family retained ownership and along with the Bar T Bar Ranch company (the owner of the land around the crater) opened the crater for public viewing in 1941. The Meteor Crater is not the oldest or the biggest or the deepest but it is the first crater in the world to be verified as a being created by a meteor strike and is one of the best preserved in the world (only 7 inches of precipitation annually).
At the bottom of the crater you can see one of the mine shafts, machinery from the old mine, a cut out of an astronaut and an American flag. Before the Apollo missions when the astronauts landed on the moon, the astronauts came to the Meteor Crater to train identifying the age of rocks.
The remains of the house Daniel Barringer lived in. This house was also the original museum.
Made it to the Grand Canyon. A fellow from England took our photo --- him and his wife were hiking down the canyon the following day, staying at the Phantom Ranch and hiking back the next day --- sounds like a lot of fun.
The canyon.
More of the canyon.
A couple was standing behind the bench I was sitting on and a certain puppy decided he needed to see them. Zaph got on the bench and handed his paw to the fellow.
Well, I’m a standing on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me
Do these lyrics ring a bell? It’s from the hit song “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. Ed remembered the lyrics and when he saw Winslow, Arizona on the map he decided we needed to go there. Not much to the town but they are definitely making the most of the song.
Route 66 is Winslow's main street.
50,000 years ago a meteor hurtling at about 26,000 miles per hour struck the unbroken plane. The meteor is estimated to have been 150 feet across and weighed several hundred thousand tons. The impact was so powerful that the meteor disintegrated on impact resulting in a crater 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across. Meteor fragments were found miles from the site. In 1902 Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer, became interested in the crater as a potential site for mining iron (meteors are full of iron) and obtained the patents and ownership of the two square miles of the crater. He never did find iron as the meteor had melted on impact but his family retained ownership and along with the Bar T Bar Ranch company (the owner of the land around the crater) opened the crater for public viewing in 1941. The Meteor Crater is not the oldest or the biggest or the deepest but it is the first crater in the world to be verified as a being created by a meteor strike and is one of the best preserved in the world (only 7 inches of precipitation annually).
At the bottom of the crater you can see one of the mine shafts, machinery from the old mine, a cut out of an astronaut and an American flag. Before the Apollo missions when the astronauts landed on the moon, the astronauts came to the Meteor Crater to train identifying the age of rocks.
The remains of the house Daniel Barringer lived in. This house was also the original museum.
Made it to the Grand Canyon. A fellow from England took our photo --- him and his wife were hiking down the canyon the following day, staying at the Phantom Ranch and hiking back the next day --- sounds like a lot of fun.
The canyon.
More of the canyon.
A couple was standing behind the bench I was sitting on and a certain puppy decided he needed to see them. Zaph got on the bench and handed his paw to the fellow.