"...And since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let is snow."
Did I happen to mention that it snows in Flagstaff? No? Well, that's because I didn't realize that when I went to bed last night, the light drizzle I heard against the window would become white and fluffy.
I woke up a little later this morning than I'd planned, but when I peeked outside to see what it was like, I got a shock. It was a white winter wonderland outside. Everything was covered with a couple inches of the wet white stuff. So I called the front desk to ask about the streets. The guy said the streets were fine. So I tried to figure out what to do today.
I couldn't log on to check the weather because my ISP was having temporary difficulties. They solved them fairly quickly. And I watched The Weather Channel to hear about the weather in Arizona. I did notice that it was 70 degrees in St. Louis. My mom must be loving it. :)
Then, Lisa from the BSJ list called and we chatted for a little bit. Since the roads seemed to be clear, I decided to still go see the Meteor Crater. So I showered and dressed and hit the road. By the time I left, the snow was already melting. And it was gone by the time I got out of Flagstaff.
The Meteor Crater is only about 30 miles east of Flagstaff, an easy drive. Then you take a regular paved road to the crater and museum. As I got out of my car, I put my coat on because the wind was blowing something fierce. I paid and went in. They have a neat museum that tells you about meteors, the planets and NASA's space program. They have one of the astronauts space suits and they list all the different missions from Mercury to Skylab and the shuttle.
As you walk around the museum, you pass by an open floor-length window and get a glimpse (or more) of the crater. I gaped for a second, then finished up the museum and went outside. Just outside the door is one of the space capsule's (or a replica). I wasn't sure which. Then I walked around the side of the building and there it was.
Another huge incredible site. On one hand, you can look at the crater and for a split second it just doesn't seem like much. It's like just another canyon or hill. But then your perspective shifts and it's amazing that this was created by a meteor from space.
The museum and outlooks are perched on the edge of the rim. Then you look down and out across this great expanse. And again for a split second, you think, "No big deal. I could hike across this." Then you think, "What are you, nuts???"
The bottom looks fairly smooth, especially compared to the sides which are craggy and rocky. They say the impact of the meteor is probably comparable to more than 20 million tons of TNT. It's about 550 feet deep, like a 60 story building. It's 4000 feet across and 2.4 miles in circumference.
The wind was whipping around, blowing very fiercely, especially out on the outlook platforms. One of the platform has several telescope-like tubes pointing to various highlights and places around the crater. You can hear the wind whistling through the tubes. The clouds scudded across the sky, letting the sun play peek-a-boo.
After marveling at the crater for a while, I started driving back. Then I decided to stop at the Walnut Canyon Monument to see the cliff dwellings. So I paid the admission fee and went out to see the dwellings. From the edge of the canyon, you can see some holes in the side of the cliff, where ancient Indians lived.
Then, I decided to see the dwellings up close. Of course, this necessitated climbing down to this inner mesa in the canyon. So I climbed down. 240 steps. In the heat of the moment, I didn't give much thought to the fact that I'd have to climb back up them.
As you climb down these stairs, you can see various outside cliffside dwellings, but from a distance. Then when you get about halfway down the canyon, you cross over to the inner mesa. The paved trail follows the edge around the inner mesa.
And after a few minutes, I came to the first cliff dwelling. Instead of seeing them from across the gorge, this one was about 3 steps away. It looked like someone had dug their nails into the side of the cliff and scraped away dirt and stone to create an overhang.
As I continued along the path, I came to some more interior cave-like overhangs. These had low walls about 1 1/2 feet tall that blocked off the inside space. Further inside, there were sometimes an indentation in the wall that was blackened above it.
The wind wasn't as bad down here, especially against the cliffside. Finally, as I reached the far end of the island-like landmass, there were more cliff dwellings. These were more cave and house-like. Several had complete walls with doors cut into them. They were tiny little doors, about 3 feet high and 1 1/2 feet wide. Inside, it was as spacious as it could be, considering that it was probably 18x10 feet.
I rounded the end and headed back the other side. There weren't any dwellings on this side, but you could look across the canyon and see cliff dwellings there.
When I returned to the stairs, I looked up at the visitor's center at the top. And realized I had to get up there. Ugh! Luckily, there are benches everywhere. The stairs are in a series of switchbacks and curves, so it's not 240 steps straight up. Considering that the elevation here is higher than I'm used to, I went slowly, stopping frequently to gasp for breath. I finally got real close to the top and realized that it had started to flurry. And when I looked up at the sky, I could see the clouds scurrying across, hiding the sun. I met a few people heading down. But I was really glad I was going up and nearly there.
By the time I got all the way up, the flurries were pretty flurrying. They hadn't started to stick or anything, but I could definitely tell they were turning into flakes. So I got in my car and headed back to the hotel.
Rather than get back on I-40 for the 5 miles or so it would take to get to my exit, I decided to take a short stretch of Route 66 that would lead me into Flagstaff. I had a pretty good idea of where I would end up. As I continued on Route 66, the flakes started getting larger and larger and wetter and wetter and the sky was darker. It was giving a good imitation of a snow storm, except that nothing was sticking. Yet.
But when I finally got to the street that was a main thoroughfare near where I was, the snow was starting to stick to cars and grass. It was a very wet and thick snow. And I realized that I'd been really lucky this morning that the snow had mostly melted by the time I'd left. But rather than trust in luck, I decided to get a snow scraper. This isn't an item that I have in my car, since there's not much of a need for one in Southern California.
So I stopped at Wal-Mart which is right across from my hotel. The snow was coming down pretty good by now and the wind was blowing it around. It started to stick o me, too. For $1.00, I got a snow scraper and snow brush. I was only in Wal-Mart about 5 minutes, maybe 10. When I got back to my car, there was already a coating of snow on the windshields. So I used my brand new scraper to brush it off. Then I went back to the hotel.
Lisa, from BSJ, called me and we talked for the longest time about books and stuff. We had been going to try and meet, but her boyfriend was cooking dinner for her and I didn't feel like getting out since the snow was still coming down pretty hard. I figured I'd order out or something.
So we hung and I read a little, then looked outside. The snow had pretty much stopped, so I decided to go out and grab a bite to eat. I'm sick of burgers and sandwiches, so I decided to go the Olive Garden for pasta. Plus it was about 2 blocks from the hotel.
I had a very nice dinner there and returned to the hotel to compose this note. It's not snowing at the moment and the weather report is that it's supposed to stop by midnight. So tomorrow should be fine.
Jules, singing "Walking in a winter wonderland"
P.S. I just heard that the official total for the snow last night was 6".
