Day 44 - Well Mel Was Standing On The Corner
Trip Start
May 19, 2008
1
46
161
Trip End
Nov 08, 2008
Where I stayed
Petrified Forest Campground
Petrified Forest National Park,
Arizona,
United States
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Our first stop-off was about 20 miles west of Winslow at Meteor Crater, which as the name suggests is a crater made by a meteor which crashed into the Arizona desert approximately 50,ooo years ago
Meteor Crater
. The entrance fee is a bit of a rip-off at $15 each but it was a very impressive sight to see, and probably the only meteor crater we'll ever see. There's also a museum of Astrology with lots of informative exhibits. Because the crater is so well preserved it has allowed astrologers and meteorologists to gain a greater understanding of the other impact craters in the solar system. Early Apollo astronauts trained here in preparation for their moon landings and to this day astronauts still train and test equipment here. As we headed further east the clouds and wind built again but only a few spots of rain for us. We really are enjoying a break from the sun, it's just been soooooo hot.
By mid-afternoon we arrived in Winslow where some local philanthropic family have erected a monument to commemorate the fact that Winslow was featured in a rather famous song. They don't however give The Eagles any mention at all. Having eventually found the only coffee shop in town which had wi-fi (that's not the only coffee shop with wi-fi in town but actually the only coffee shop in town which just happened to have wi-fi), we discovered that it was closed. Winslow is quite a run-down looking place, business must be tough for the locals, so you would have thought that they would open as much as possible, especially in the middle of the afternoon
View Across The Desert From Meteor Crater
. Anyway, we drove on a little to a "Sonic", a fast food chain specialising in ice-creams and milkshakes, where you park under cover in the shade, place your order at your own individual ordering station and then your order is brought out to you by a waitress on roller-skates! Different, and very nice shakes according to Neil! Back outside earlier said coffee shop we sent our e-mails (still had their wi-fi on even though they were closed!). As you may have noticed, our mails and blog updating have been sporadic in recent weeks, either due to us being in the middle of nowhere in the National Parks or from situations like this one in one horse towns where the horse is having the afternoon off or has never heard of the internet! So apologies to everyone if we have appeared slack in replying to your mails or in keeping the blog up to date, but it's difficult sometimes. We've also got the SDCVW stuff going on in the background and this is also using up quite a bit of our on-line time.
Back on the highway we headed for a camp-site just outside Holbrook to find when we got where it was supposed to be that it had been replaced by a huge coal-fired power station. We drove around and re-read the directions several times, not believing that this could be the case
Standing On The Corner In Winslow, Arizona
. But eventually we realised that there was no other explanation, especially as the power station looked quite new. Not having many sites available to us in that area we headed for the southern entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park, where our book assured us that we could camp for free! About an hour later, we arrived there, to find to our surprise that yes, it was actually still there and not been replaced by nuclear reactors and yes it was in fact free. (And far nicer than the one we had to pay $12 for last night). It was very, very basic. No toilets (good old porta-potti) or showers but nice clean pitches, picnic tables and rubbish bins and fantastic views across the desert of the park. And a brilliant storm off in the distance to watch as the sun went down.
Distance travelled: 140 miles
Total distance travelled: 2256 miles
Days on road: 24
States visited: 3
National Parks visited: 3
