Flagstaff, AZ to Sedona AZ via Meteor Crater AZ.
By Simran Jayasinghe
We woke up at the Hilton Garden Inn, Flagstaff. And guess what? It was snowing! We were really excited about the snow because we haven’t seen snow falling before. We went outside and enjoyed the falling snow for a little before we had breakfast. Then, we packed our bags and got in the van to head to our next destination, Sedona AZ. On the way to Sedona, we decided to take a detour and go to the Meteor Crater. From flagstaff we took interstate 40 east towards Winslow and followed directions to the Meteor Crater.
The Meteor Crater
The Meteor Crater is the worlds best reserved meteor impact site in the world. The impact happened about 50,000 years ago. It is one mile wide, and more than 550 feet deep. In winter, it can get very windy, but even though on normal days it isn’t that windy, it’s good to be prepared.
We went on a Guided Rim Trail Tour. The guide was really knowledgable and gave us a lot of interesting facts about the crater and its discovery. You can see directly into the crater when you are in the rim trail and the hike was a lot of fun. On the hike we also got to see some cool rocks including the Pulverized Coconino Sandstone. The wind was quite strong. We were scared thinking that our little sister would be blown away. Later we heard that there were wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour! We had fun even though the wind was strong.
On our way back from the Meteor Crater to Sedona, we went on this wonderful drive from Flagstaff to Sedona, on the Oak Creek Canyon Road (highway 89A south). Highway 89A has several sharp turns, and at first, our mom wasn’t too excited about the road, because she doesn’t exactly like windy roads, but pretty soon, the surroundings made her forget about the winding road, and she was oohing and aahing all the way. Actually, most of us did too. On either side of the road there were towering mountains, the trees were covered in snow, and there was a creek running beside the road. The landscape just captures you and it is really majestic. It is just indescribable.
We checked in to the Days Inn in Sedona. It was raining and there was a lot of fog. The rooms at the Days Inn were big, but they needed some updating. The room looked old and the carpets looked like they needed some cleaning. One of the heaters in one of the rooms did not work, and we had to ask the front desk to come and replace a couple of light bulbs. We gave this Days Inn two stars.
Click here to learn more about the Meteor Crater.