Home

Yes, the trip is over, but I don't think that I've ever had a more interesting drive home.

I woke up Saturday morning to the soothing sounds of traditional Hopi music on KUYI. (I'm pretty glad that they're streaming online, because I'm going miss them, too!) I packed up the car and I hit the road. I drove right past the volleyball court that I played on a few weeks ago, and coincidentally, there was another tournament going on. I played in a few games the night before, but I told my team that I'd be a no show on Saturday. I just had to rip the band-aid off and go home! But in one last attempt to keep me on the rez, KUYI switched over to Car Talk just as I was driving out of their broadcast range. Of all the shows that they could have played!

I hadn't driven for more than an hour before I came to my first stop. Even though I was set on going home that day, I wasn't quite ready to give up the scenery cold turkey. So I pulled off the road into the Little Painted Desert, and it was well worth the stop. The surreal moonscape of the park is unlike anything that I had seen before.

Pretty nice, huh?

The next stop was a great piece of Route 66 Americana. It was the privately managed Meteor Crater. It's exactly what it sounds like, a giant crater that was formed by an equally giant meteor 50,000 years ago. I saw some signs on the freeway, and the attraction seemed too cool to miss. It was well worth the initially-surprising $15 entrance fee, especially since the fee also included a free cookie (with purchase) from the Subway inside the visitor's center.

The site itself was pretty incredible, but the visitor's center (and the visitors, themselves) was the real attraction. The center--complete with museum and RV park--has the utilitarian-deco feel of a Hoover Dam reject plan.

Walking into the museum was like walking into the 1950s. The first thing that you see is the Apollo test capsule that NASA astronauts used during their practice runs in the crater. Gravity aside, the crater was apparently great practice for moon landings.

And inside the museum, you can purchase your very own squished-penny trinket. You can also take your photo at the base of the crater...sort of.

Care to buy some Meteor Crater playing cards? How about some alien ice cream? Don't worry, they've got you covered.

And here's my favorite: you can by crater dust (aka dirt) for $11.95. Genius.

In addition to all of it's tacky charm, the museum was actually pretty informative. I learned that the 100,000 ton meteor was traveling at 26,000 miles per hour, and the impact site generated the explosive power of 20 million tons of TNT. For comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the equivalent of 15 thousand tons of TNT.

As I was pulling out from the crater site, I noticed some ruins off in the distance.

I drove down the dirt trail to get a better look.

I don't know anything about them, but I love that you can drive down a random dirt road in Arizona, and have a pretty decent chance of seeing some stone building ruins.

My next stop was the awe-inspiring Walnut Canyon. It has one of the highest concentrations of cliff dwellings on the planet, and is managed by the Natural Park Service. This meant that the entrance fee was much lower, but I had no opportunity to purchase a Cliff Dweller Barbie doll.

Even without the dwellings, the canyon would be an attraction in itself. It is a large, green separation in the earth's crust, and has striking rock faces that were carved out by ancient oceans.

Looking closer, you can see some homes carved out of the canyon wall.

The canyon also features a short hiking trail that lets you walk through a few selected dwellings. Ancient model homes, if you will...

Walking though the neighborhood, my forehead didn't stand a chance.

The last stop of the trip was Montezuma's Castle. It is an incorrectly named four-story housing structure that had nothing to do with the Mayan king. It was actually inhabited by the Sinagua people (the ancestors of many Hopis), and was extremely well preserved by the overhanging cliff.

After visiting Montezuma's Castle, I returned to the car and headed back to Tucson.

Just like the drive up to the reservation, the drive home showed me how interesting this state is. It's good to live here. And it's good to be home.