Saturday, 4th May - Flagstaff to Williams

Another day of sunshine and late Spring/early Summer warmth (mid 20s Centigrade). Initially we headed in the "wrong direction" going east back along Interstate 40/Route 66 to Winslow, Arizona, where, of course, we took it easy standing on the corner (Jackson Browne wrote "Take It Easy" for The Eagles back in the day).

The coffee shop on the opposite corner is under new ownership and, sadly, the legendary White Cow milk shake is no longer available. No matter, other flavours are available ....... and enjoyed!

After the obligatory visit to the gift shops making the most of the Boomer Eagles fans paying homage to their heroes (to be honest, probably nobody would have cause to visit Winslow if it hadn't been for THAT song) we drove back west to the Meteor Crater.

https://meteorcrater.com/

It is hard to describe and even harder to capture on camera the sheer enormity of this monstrous hole in the ground. It is one mile in diameter, half a mile deep and the rim has a circumference of two and a half miles. If it was a sports stadium it would accommodate two million spectators.

The meteorite that formed the Crater was approximately 145 feet long and was largely vaporised on impact at 26,000 m.p.h. creating an explosive force roughly equivalent to a 20 megaton bomb. And so the superlatives go on.

This is just one "small" chunk (it took five men to lift it out of the ground) of what remains of the meteorite:

We enjoyed a 40 minute guided tour around a quarter mile path of the rim and learned, amongst a whole raft of facts, that NASA to this day use the Crater for astronaut training (Buzz Aldrin famously tore his space suit on a jagged piece of rock here).

Cratered out, we continued west on I40 to Williams and our next two nights accommodation at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel. Santa Fe Chile awaited and did not disappoint 😋