In honor of some of our best friends, we would like to start the day with a stop on Route 66 at the Iron Horse Saloon. Hank and Arnie are charter Iron Horse Cowboys and I am proud to say that I have finally acheived status as an Iron Horse Cowgirl. Anyway, in Williams AZ, here was the Iron Horse Saloon!
We are doing the Hank thumbs up!
Our first stop of the day was the Meteor Crater East of Flagstaff off of I-40. Hurtling to earth at about 26,000 miles per hour, a meteorite slammed into the flat plain. First, a meteoroid travels through space. When it enters the earth's atmosphere, it is called a meteor and when and if it crashes to earth, it is called a meteorite. Anyway, this one was estimated to be about 150ft across and weighing several hundred thousand tons struck the plain you see in this picture with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. By the way, this picture is taken through an open hole in the wall. In less than a few seconds, a crater 700ft deep and over 4000ft across was carved.
In the bottom of this crater, you could put 20 football fields and then 2,000,000 people inside. It isn't the largest or oldest (it's only estimated to be 50,000 years old) in the US, but it is the best preserved and the first proven meteorite impact site on the planet!In the US, there are about 27 meteor craters. The largest one in the world is in Africa.
This crater has been owned by the same family for over 100 yrs. They operate this center and it has been and is still used by scientists to study meteors. In 1968, Meteor Crater was designated a Natural Landmark by the Department of the Interior. NASA has used this crater from 1964 until 1972 to simulate lunar moon craters for our astronauts. All the astronauts that walked on the moon trained here. At an impact site, the cratering process ejects material that originates below the surface of the crater. When our astronauts went to the moon, they knew they should be able to collect material on ejecta blankets that originated beneath the cratered region. this technique was solely learned at meteor crater.
Just a picture of a root cellar that I thought was neat. 
An inhabitant of the desert
A pretty flower of the desert
Winslow Arizona, Route 66! 
Now I always knew that the Eagles made this corner in Winslow AZ famous with their song, "Take It Easy", but I never knew the real story behind the song until now. Seems that Jackson Browne was driving Route 66 and he broke down at the corner in the picture above this one. He was standing beside his car when a girl driving a flat bed Ford slowed down to take a look at him. Later, while collaborating with his good friend, Glen Frye, they wrote Take It Easy.
We arrived in Winslow in time for a closed street car show. Of course this one was Dave's favorite!
Next stop was Petrified Forest. 
These logs were so cool. Once, this area was a floodplain. Conifer trees stood along the banks of the streams. Crocodile like reptiles, giant amphibians and small dinosaurs lived here. Over time, the trees fell over and were covered by silt, mud, and volcanic ash. This stuff cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Silica laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually, the silica crystalized into quartz and the logs were petrified. Over time, (try 225 million years since the trees lived) wind and water (the ranger told us that it is not unusual for winds to be recorded at 70-100mph) wore away the rock layers and exposed fossilized ancient plants and animals and this wood.
See the petrified wood at the bottom
This is a very cool park.
We next made our way to the Painted Desert. It was just about dusk, so the coloring wasn't the best, but I must say, it still was awesome to see the different colors.
Painted Desert
Nightfall at Painted Desert.
This should have been at the top, oh well! Anyway, while we were at the Meteor Crater, it started to rain. Not hard, but it was two days in a row for us. We were told that at the crater, they get 7" of precip a year and that includes snow, so they asked us to come back as they can always use rain! Arizona is a free range state for the cattle by the way, they just roam wherever they want. Well, we aren't sure where we are heading tomorrow, probably towards Tuscon to catch the Bills game and then onto Tombstone. Remember this, raising children is like getting pecked to death by chickens! Peace and love to all, Dave and Linda
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