Southwest Vacation - Headed Home

Saturday morning we got up and got ready to head home.  We had a couple of side trips along the way so we got started early.

Our first stop was the Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona (yes you all have heard that city mentioned in a famous Eagles song - and yes it took me all the way home to finally put all the lyrics together in my head!).  The Meteor Crater is the breath-taking result of a collision between a piece of an asteroid traveling at 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago.  Today, Meteor Crater is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep.  (or to the unscientific eye -- a big ol' hole!)

When we got there the electricity had just gone out, some of the visitors had just gotten out of the elevators after being stuck for 20 minutes!  Thank goodness I only had to climb TWO flights of stairs this time!



LOVE this picture of my shutterbug!

A few miles down the road near Holbrook, Arizona we stopped off at the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  This was one of my favorite spots of our trip...we'll have to go back sometime because soon after we arrived, the sun started going down.

Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees, that lived about 225 million years ago.  We brought home a beautiful piece of the forest to put in our yard. 

The fallen logs were HUGE.

There is nothing more beautiful than an Arizona sunset.

 



The Painted Desert

After we left the Painted Desert, it was around 6:30...or dinner time! The original plan was to stay the night in Albuquerque, which was about 4 hours away.  My husband had the brilliant idea to drive all the way home.  That way we would be home around 3:00 on Sunday rather than around 11:00.  So we set out toward Arkansas.  The nearest Hooter's was in Albuquerque so that's where we set our sights for dinner...yes, dinner at 10:30 at night!  I guess it really doesn't matter if you're not going to sleep!

Somehow I was the one who ended up with the 11:30pm to 6:30 pm shift...HOW'D THAT HAPPEN?  Well...with a few bottles of 5 hours energy...that really only last 2 hours!  After about an hour nap, we stopped for breakfast at Denny's in Oklahoma City.  And drove in our driveway at 2:30.  After it was all said and done, it was the better solution, but in those wee hours of the morning I was tempted to pull into the closest Best Western!