Flagstaff, AZ (9/30 - 10/14/24)

After arriving in Arizona for the winter, our second stop was to visit Flagstaff to enjoy the many sites and activities in this area. We stayed at the Flagstaff KOA where we were centrally located to several of the areas we wanted to visit. The town has some museums and breweries/restaurants that we really liked. Go to Fat Olives for some good Italian.

One of our first ventures was to visit Meteor Crater where we learned about the differences between a crater created by meteors versus the more common volcanic craters located in this area. Concluding that a crater was caused by a meteor isn't as easy as I thought. Since meteors can vaporize upon impact, the crater itself may have little evidence of a actual meteor in the crater.

In addition to how the rocks layers become inverted upon impact, they also did find many fragments outside the crater that provided the evidence of a meteor crater in this case.

Not far from Meteor Crater is the town of Winslow on the historic Route 66 highway. The famous Eagles song "Take It Easy", written with help from Jackson Browne, mentions the town of Winslow.

"Well, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me."

On another day trip, we went north to visit Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument to see a volcanic crater with a bunch of evidence of previous volcanic activity all around it.

Taking a hike on the Lava Flow Trail shows how this once-molten lava must have looked like with cinders spewing from the volcano in the background just 1,000 years ago.

Not far from Sunset Crater is the Citadel Pueblo, where this was an example of these people who built a home on top of existing lava rock formation. There are several pueblos to visit nearby.

Farther east of Flagstaff is a well worthwhile trip to the Petrified Forest National Park. Here is an amazing collection of petrified trees in several locations throughout the park. This park is also the only National Park in the US that historic Route 66 crosses through.

Here a petrified tree sits atop a hill, seemingly setting the direction of the erosion below.

Here at the Agate Bridge, they found a petrified tree across a ravine. To protect the bridge from crumbling, they created concrete supports over 100 years ago.

A closeup look shows how mineral deposits replaced organic tree cells to create these tree shaped stones.

Another feature of this park are the views of the Painted Desert. Here is a view as you descend into the canyon to view the cliffs from below.

From below, you can see the layers of rock and the occasional petrified trees as well.

Another viewpoint is from the Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument in the park where you can see more examples of ancient petroglyphs.

To the south of Flagstaff, you can take a day trip to visit the scenic town of Sedona. Here is a view of the Courthouse Vista.

This is Bell Rock.

From the airport vista, you can see the town below.

This is Chimney Rock from taking a short hike in the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park.

In the park we were also greeted by Javelinas crossing our path.

Real close to our campground, we visited the Walnut Canyon National Monument where we could see more cliff dwellings and do some hiking.

As we descended down the path to see some dwellings, we stopped to take in the canyon view.

One of the lesser advertised activities you can do here was to visit the no-cost Lava Flow Cave. This 3/4 mile one-way trek is a challenge is some sections, but not too technical for even families to overcome. There is no exit on the other side, so you need to go both ways.

This cave was about 50 degrees and you definitely need a flashlight (or headband light). At this point in the cave you have an option to go left or right. We heard going left was less crouching, so to save our backs, we went that direction. Most of the cave had ceilings over 20'.

The path was quite uneven and jagged in many places, so hard-souled hiking boots would be recommended.

This is Michelle emerging from the mouth of the cave.

There is so much to do here. This day we took another scenic hike in the woods to see some more views of the mountains all over the area.

This picture we took from a hike on the Fatman trail that we could access right from our campground. The town of Flagstaff is in the valley below.

Now we head to Prescott to see what trouble we can get into there...