Saved by a Meteor Crater!

Well, I had my lovely morning at Macy's and hit the road around 11:30am. It is 44 degrees and hailing when I Ieave Flagstaff, but about 15 minutes outside of the city the skies clear and and it is sunny with great puffs of clouds rolling across vast empty plains. I notice a haze of pink dust in the distance and find the image strange. The open road fills me with giddiness, though, and I put on my upbeat playlist from work that features MGMT, Lil Mama and the like. I'm cruising down Hwy 40, ready to keep driving until I hit Tucumcari, New Mexico, my next destination when I notice a sign off the side of the road: METEOR CRATER. Then another sign: Tune to 1610 AM for info. I tune in and an emphatic radio announcer beguiles the lone Hwy 40 traveller: "Visit historic Winslow! Take a picture with the flatbed girl!...Experience...the Impact! Visit Meteor Crater! Over 2-1/2 miles round! 4000 feet across, 550 feet deep! It's NASA's official training and test site!" I think, why the hell not? I've never seen a meteor crater and it's only 5 miles south of the highway.

I take a two-lane road off the freeway and pass a bunch of cows. I spend maybe five minutes at the welcome center after I learn that admission to see the crater is $15. Meteors craters are cool, but not that cool. Plus, it is windy as hell; I'm nearly knocked over as I walk back to my car. As I near the highway, I notice that all the cars have stopped in their tracks. No one is moving anywhere. WTF? Was there an accident?


I turn around and drive into a gas station in the shape of a something space-like. There is a Hole Enchilada and an old biker dude with a ZZ Top beard decked out in a leather jacket and chaps covered in patches from, what I can only guess are his many travels. I ask the woman at the counter if she knows what's going on on the highway.

"They've closed the road."
"What?"
"They closed it down."
"Howcome? What happened?"
"Too windy."
"Is that what that pink cloud is?"
"Yeah, red dirt."
"How long will it be closed down for?"
"Until at least 7:00 or 8:00 tonight."
"Tonight??!"
"Yeah, that's what they did last week."
"So what happens to the people who are stuck on the road?"
"They're stuck."
"You mean they're stuck there until 7:00?"
"Yeah."

Wow. Thank god I turned off the highway when I did! I would have gone absolutely bonkers if I had been stuck in one place on Hwy 40 for seven or eight hours. I decide to drive back to Flagstaff and spend another night there. It's supposed to continue to rain and even snow a little bit, but I'll have another night here to explore the city and also get something good to eat. I'm starving. I haven't eaten a solid meal since I left Los Angeles--just snacking on food I brought from home and the breakfast croissant I had at Macy's earlier this morning. I hear there's a good Mexican restaurant, Salsa Brava it's called, and I'm curious about the historic downtown area of Flagstaff. I'm not really dressed for the weather because I wasn't anticipating a winter storm, but I think I'll be fine. I might even go to a free yoga class I read about online later tonight...