May 13, 2018

Only a couple more days before we start our trip North to Alaska. I think we have accomplished the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and the vast area around Williams, AZ.

Yesterday we set out for Meteor Crater. I think I said earlier I had visited it sometime in the late 70's while I was in the Air Force stationed at Nellis AFB just outside Las Vegas. On the other hand, Chris and Heather had not been there.

As was the case the last couple of days, the winds have been over 40MPH making the drive out there challenging.

The facilities had been updated dramatically since the 70's. They have new buildings, a museum of sorts, and a theater. We toured the museum and watched their movie before heading outside. I only took a few photos as it was difficult to remain standing in the winds. Still the views were awe inspiring. I also learned that this crater is the most preserved on the planet.

So, today we drove back out to the Grand Canyon to finish visiting the last couple of places we missed on Thursday and Friday. We made the HUGE mistake of taking Mallory. Being only 9 months old and all of the people, she was completely out of control. Any training we have done to-date was completely wasted. She just wanted to visit the thousand of humans. What a bad dog!!!  I guess she is going to spend more time in her crate.

However, I did take the photograph of the century! See below for it and the details on the image.

These are two of the largest fragments they found. The original meteor that hit around 50,000 years ago at 26,000MPH was around 150 feet across.

Heather and Chris down at the bottom of the Meteor Crater!!! NOT!! This is in their museum.


 Grand Canyon May 13, 2018 Mother's Day

This image is of the North Rim Buildings where we were in 2014. I saw approximately where this was on a map in the Yavapai Point and Geological Museum. I also asked a ranger if you could see it and he said no but he also pointed me in the same direction as indicated on the map. He said it was over 11 miles away.  I put on my 100-400mm telephoto lens with a 1.4 extender. Shooting at 560mm and pointing the camera in the direction given me, I took two photos. Both photos had the buildings in them even though I could not see them in the viewfinder of my camera. This image was also digitally zoomed slightly.

 One of our better lunch time views.