Meteor Crater

I love the “meandering” from place to place we’ve been doing – 2 to 3 hours drive at most and we are at another adventure! We toured Meteor Crater this afternoon because the weather is supposed to be cool and windy tomorrow – I can’t imagine it because the wind gusts about blew you away today! The tour guide said they cancel the rim walk tours if the wind is a consistent 30 mph. This area of Arizona reminds us of the plains of Wyoming – you can see for miles but there is nothing to see!
The meteor hit this area 50,000 years ago and left a huge crater. It is well preserved because there is so little rain. The land has been privately owned by the Behringer family for 100 years – they obtained it through a land grant after mining it for a period of years. It is now surrounded by the Crater Ranch – all 320,000 acres of it! The scientists originally thought it was made by a volcano but then discovered evidence that proved it was a meteor. A large piece of the meteor was found about 6 miles away and is on display – it weighs 1400 pounds! If it had to land somewhere on earth it sure picked a good spot! The tour guide scruffed the surface of a white sandstone, left over from the meteor hit, and it made a sand as fine as flour.
The crater so resembles the surface of the moon that the astronauts actually used the area for training. They have an "Austronaut Wall of Fame" and we saw Bernard Harris, MD there. Dr. Harris is originally from San Antonio and worked with us at South Texas Primary Care, Dr. Langlinais' office. Dr. L would have loved him to take over the practice but Dr. Harris had other dreams and went to NASA. He went into space two times. Roger & I saw Bernard on TV recently - in an ad encouraging children to pursue math and science. Memories from the past!
We talked with Kyle, Heather and the girls this past week-end. Kyle is coming to Ohio for a meeting this week – just one meeting then turning around and going home! The guys asked him if there was a particular place he would like to eat and he said “any place that serves pork” so he’ll probably get some good BBQ. Heather is sending him with an empty suitcase and a shopping list for Target! Heather is fortunate that they have many friends in similar situations – the husbands travel a lot – so she has a good support group while Kyle is gone.

GO SPURS - don't know what team showed up last night but it wasn't my Spurs! They have to "Git 'er done!" on Thursday.