Route 66 Attractions – Explore Meteor Crater
No tour of America's historic Route 66 would be complete without a stop at Arizona's Meteor Crater
. Located along I-40 just between Winslow and Flagstaff, Meteor Crater offers a wonderful place to stop along this windswept stretch of desert highway. It's the world's best preserved meteor crater, and it's got an incredible interactive visitors center and a wonderful RV park.
Fire from the Sky
The main attraction is a giant hole in the earth made 50,000 years ago by a 150 foot long chunk of asteroid hurtling through space. It turned into a massive fireball when it entered into the earth's atmosphere and smashed into the ground with an explosion like 20 million tons of TNT.
What it left behind is a 550 foot deep crater. Its rim is raised 150 above the desert floor and it has a circumference of 2.4 miles. The rim offers several fantastic overlooks with telegraphic lenses so you can see the crater-pocked bottom. Guided tours along the rim allow you to get a closer look.
Explore the Solar System
The crater is breathtaking, but the visitor center offers even more. The Meteor Crater visitor center is full of exhibits, simulations, artifacts and interactive displays. The center's wide screen theater offers its film "Impacts and Collisions," which simulates the meteorite crashing.
The Meteor Crater was used by Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and other astronauts to train for the first moon walk. They used lunar tools to collect soil and rocks from the crater's floor because of its resemblance to the moon's surface. The visitor center offers all kinds of exhibits pertaining to the space program, including its Astronaut Wall of Fame and an actual test capsule from the Apollo Mission.
Stay and Stargaze
Meteor Crater also has its own RV campground which gets rave reviews from travel sites. It's modern and clean, and has all the amenities you'll need like wireless internet access, electrical hook-ups and clean showers. It also has its own gas station, convenience store, rec room, laundry facilities and Mexican restaurant.
The RV campground is a great launching point for other Route 66 and southwestern attractions. The fee includes a discount for Meteor Crater itself, and also offers coupons for other sightseeing places including Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Sunset Crater, Wupatki National Monument and lots more.
It's also a great stay because of its natural beauty. Meteor Crater is located in the high desert country, which has moderate days and cool nights. The park is surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The stars at night light up the sky, and the desert sunrise and sunset are light shows of shifting colors.
One of the great things about this Route 66 attraction is that it's not a tourist trap. Meteor Crater is a small, friendly, family-run operation. Even though it's huge, with its full scale visitor center and full-service RV park, the staff are so friendly that you can feel right at home. The tour guides are fun and knowledgeable, and guaranteed to make your walking tour more than just a tromp along the rim.
Meteor Crater is an excellent Route 66 attraction that shouldn't be missed.
Route 66 Attractions Explore Meteor Crater
By: Greg Scott
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