October 2004. Meteor crater is about 3 1/2 hours from our house. The weather was beautiful and it made a nice day trip. It's an amazing natural wonder and they have made a nice little museum to go with it. More info can be found at http://www.meteorcrater.com/
Approaching the crater.
NASA has used the crater as a training site for astronauts. Karl and Justin pose with a space capsule.
Karl and Justin hiked along part of the rim. The following photos are from that hike.
The ruins are what is left of a house that was built at rim of the crater site. It was used by the miner, then some workers and then turned into a museum by the mine owners wife. Eventually it burned down.
The next two show the bottom of the crater... what's left of the mining effort and what's left of a small plane that tried to fly into the crater only to be trapped by a lack of wind and crashed.
Most of the meteor was distroyed on impact but a small piece broke off as it fell to earth and was discovered in the desert near the crater. It's not much bigger than a laundry basket but it weighs 1440 pounds!
