Dawn has decided. We need to make our trip a bit more exciting. So we're going to try some new things.
When we are kids, we are told about Meteors and how they can make big craters on the moon, but we aren't really given a visual of what goes on when a huge rock, hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour, hits the planets, or the moon's surface. We discovered that the World's "Best" Meteor Impact Site is in Arizona. By "Best", we mean that it's absolutely, perfectly formed, isolated & huge and couldn't be a better example of a Meteor strike, if Disney had drawn it!
It's located, all on it's own, in the middle of no-where, about 7 miles from highway-40. Right in the middle of a vast, open plain of empty , flat high desert space.
50,000 years ago, this Meteor, the size of a large house, decided to land on earth, traveling at thousands of miles per hour, with the force of a very large Hydrogen Bomb. It made a huge hole in just a few seconds, over 500 ft deep and nearly 1 mile across, creating in the process, a perfect crater rim in an almost perfect circle. We could easily see it on a Satellite map.
Only a small chuck of a fragment has been found. It's comprised on 93% Iron and 3% Ni, suggesting that it originated from an exploded planet's core; similar in composition and age (4.5B years) to our own. Perhaps originating from the planetary debris found in our own solar system's asteroid belt.
So we had to go for a Look-See! It actually a rare find, to be able to see a perfectly formed and preserved meteor impact site. As it is such a magnificent example of a Meteor strike, a very well run visitors center has been built on it's rim, full of great information and exhibits..
Years ago, NASA had a bunch of astronauts live at the site for a while. We couldn't understand why? The meteor experts told us that NASA wanted the astronauts to have a good idea of what it is like to walk around in a meteor crater; before they visited the moon ..... 'makes sense...
After seeing the size of the crater, being equivalent to the size of a Hydrogen Bomb's crater; we wizzed off on the road again... to find out more about Nuclear Bombs.
Handily, the world's 'Best' Nuclear Weapon, Science and Energy Museum is in Albuquerque, NM , located on our route, near the next Super Charger along Route 66.
This Nuclear Science Museum turned out of be truly Excellent. We saw replicas of the Uranium and Plutonium Bombs that the US dropped on Japan, a whole array of ICBMs, Nuclear Energy Displays along with detail of all the History, the Allied forces' Politics and decision making involved in exploding these weapons of mass destruction near the end of the WW2. Also, there was a nice display of equipment and systems involved with the Physics of Nuclear devices.
After the Nuclear museum, we spent some time in Santa Fe, NM. A visit to Meow Wolf blew our minds. Like an LSD hallucination, this paradise for artists, is by far the most mind expanding display of clever, out of the box art ideas we have ever heard of. Clearly, these artists have had the minds expanded somehow.... If you enjoy wacky, modern Art, we can't recommend a visit to Meow Wolf enough.
Most importantly, Meow Wolf have invented a new kind of washing machine with a wildly successful, anti aging function. Dawn is clearly getting a little older so I encouraged her to climb in!! And the result?!?! It worked !! ... but perhaps the settings were turned up a little bit too high ... but the effects wore off...after a few hours.. . Thankfully.
I realized that I like my Wife, just the way she is...
