{I Stopped to Smell Arizona Style Roses}

I took a couple turns off the main road during my day trip.
The first one was as I was driving out of Payson...
Black Canyon Lake.


It was a six mile drive down a chatter bump filled dirt road.


They were gathering these trees up by the truckload.
It made me sad to see. They looked burnt -- not sure
if that was intentional or not.


And here's the lake.


I enjoyed poking around down there. Quiet and
lovely. Chatted with this old guy who was fishing
for trout. Watched another person canoeing.
Touched the earth. Smelled the air. It was wonderful.


Have I posted one of these before?
Once the plant sprouts this flower, the plant dies.


It really goes out with a bang though, huh?


I just barely got a shot of this chipmunk that ran
right up to me looking for a treat! He was six inches
in front of my toes. Pretty cool.


A few cows roamed around the land that flanked the road
to the lake. No fences. It was just their place. Such a
much nicer existence than the poor cows in Phoenix who have
to spend their days under triple digit hot sun with little shade,
standing on dirt, with no green grass under their hooves to
munch on. (That's one of my latest rants that David has
enjoyed listening to.)


It's been awhile since I've seen one close up. They were cute.

I stopped again to soak up the view somewhere between the
cows and the Petrified Forest. It's a favorite spot of mine.
In the middle of nowhere -- between Hebur and Holbrook.
Totally flat. Those dark green shrubish trees against the
yellow grass on a backdrop of dramatic clouds. Delicious...





And then after I did my thing at the Petrified Forest,
I headed towards home by way of Flagstaff (a different
route then the one I took up). I grabbed the opportunity
to stop and see the Meteor Crater. I've passed it without
peaking many times, and decided to seize the moment on
this trip...


I shamelessly breezed through the museum there in the
interest of getting through the hilly, curvy mountain
roads before it was pitch black.


Here's a picture of the whole impact spot that I snapped
inside the display area. It's huge, huh?


And this is it in real life. The size of the people in comparison
to the crater helps give you a sense of the size of this thing.
It's 4,000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep!


The meteor, weighing several hundred thousand tons,
flew through space and landed here 50,000 years ago.





It's a pretty amazing site. I'm glad I stopped to see it!