We made it to Flagstaff, Arizona!

First on our things to see. Meteor Crater National Landmark:

This crater is significant as it was the first crater to actually have been proven to be from a meteor. From the lessons learned at this site, they were then able to identify more meteor craters throughout the world.

The crater is 500 feet deep and about a mile across, so it is pretty massive. It's the result of a meteor about 160 feet across slamming into the earth at about 12 miles per second around 50,000 years ago (There's still some debate whether it was instead moving at 8 miles per second but all that matters is that it was moving ridiculously fast).

The entire complex takes you right up to the rim of the crater. Around the edge they have telescopes pointing downwards to various points of interest (which is super helpful because at that distance you can hardly see anything with the naked eye).

The scale of the crater is difficult to show in pictures, but here are my best attempts:

It's hard to tell from this perspective, but that platform is stretched over quite a bit of a drop (I stopped walking on it as soon I made that realization).

We got there towards the end of the day, so didn't get a chance to visit the museum or some of the exhibit areas, but still we're glad we got a chance to see it.

The only other thing we had planned on our westward journey through Arizona was to see the Grand Canyon. This we saved for the weekend figuring it would be an all day adventure.

We only had a short drive from Flagstaff to get there, and upon arriving picked the closest path that we could find. Ahead we could get a few glimpses through some branches, but as we cleared them we were greeted with this sight:

There have only been a handful of times in my life where I felt my breath leave me... and I couldn't help but stare a bit dumbfounded at what lay before me.

It's truly difficult to capture feelings with a photograph and the best I can do is explain how absolutely huge it is. You stand there on the edge, and see the canyon go off far into the distance, and you suddenly feel very small. Knowing how much time it took for a river to cut through all of that stone to create the thing that lay before me... it definitely puts our lives into perspective and how short of a period of time that really is in the grand scale of things. Its definitely a surreal experience and one that I highly recommend.

Trails stretch in both directions, and we just happened to pick the direction that led to the most popular viewing overlooks.

There are large areas of walkway where there aren't any fences or railings. It sort of reminded me of parts of Iceland where we were surprised to not see anything there. There were plenty of people who apparently felt comfortable enough to hang their feet off the edge and other such nonsense, but I made sure to stay an embarrassingly far distance back from any such things.

We probably walked a half mile in either direction, and were really surprised by how different each little bend was. At one point it might be huge drop-offs with almost fractal-like canyons splitting off in the distance, to tall red cliffs that rose up sharply in the air.

Eventually we started to get tired of walking, so we decided to follow the desert driving route that runs along the Grand Canyon. It's a small road that brings you to completely different overlooks each with their own unique view.

This was probably my favorite part of our trip here as each view gave something different to be appreciated.

I'm not going to write more about this, as really it's something you just need to experience in person to truly enjoy. Definitely impacted me far more than I thought it would, just another awesome experience.