RonnieAdventure #0468 - Winslow, Homolovi State Park, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park, Meteor Crater, Arizona

When the railroads expanded westward, Winslow was founded as a railroad town and later became a major stopping point on Route 66, which paralleled the railroad tracks. 

In 1930 the last Harvey House (La Posada Hotel) designed by Mary Colter opened in Winslow; but as passenger rail service declined, in 1957 the hotel was converted to offices for the Santa Fe Railrway. Then, in 1994 the railroad abandoned the building and had planned to tear it down. but instead it was sold to a private investor and restored. This is a great place to stop for lunch when traveling through the area. 

In 1972 Winslow became famous when the Eagles band produced the song "Take it Easy," with the famous line "Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." There is now a building mural and a statue of a band member standin' on a street corner leaning against a lamppost. The mural depicts the famous "Girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford." Winslow also has an annual "Standin' On The corner Street Festival that is usually held in the last part of September. 

Homolovi State Park is located a short distance from Winslow and protects over 300 archeological sites and seven separate pueblo ruins. "Homolovi" is a Hopi Indian word meaning "place of the little hills." Located in the Park is a research center that studies the migration period of the Hopi Indians from the 1200s to the late 1300s. 

Petrified Forest National Park is located about an hour's drive east of Winslow. The first recorded Europeans to reach the area was the Francisco Vazquez de Coronado Expedition in 1540. Coronado was searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola and when he passed through the area he named it "El Desierto Pintado ("the Painted Desert")." The "Painted Desert" refers to a vast area in Northern Arizona with parts of the Desert falling within Petrified Forest National Park and parts falling within the Navajo Nation.

Petrified Forest National Park contains 346 square miles in Navajo and Apache Counties and was established to protect large quantities of petrified wood found in the area. In addition to being located within the "Painted Desert" and containing petrified wood, the National Park contains fossils, archeological sites, and a variety of plants and animals. 

A concrete support has been added under the fossilized tree to keep it intact.

There are also some nice fossils exhibits from the Mesozoic era (about 225 million years ago) located in the Rainbow Forest Museum and Visitor Center. (I forgot to take the lens hood off of my camera when using a flash; thus, the shadows in the pictures.)

BONUS PICTURES

Photograph by Shane.Torgerson.Wikimedia

Meteor Crater is located in northern Arizona just west of Winslow and is reported to be the "Best preserved meteorite crater on Earth." It is about 3,900 feet across and 560 feet deep. The dirt around the crater rises another 150 feet above the surrounding plains. 

Historically, the impact area was called "Canyon Diablo Crater" because Canyon Diablo was the closest town when the crater was named. The name was later changed to "Meteor Crater" because there was a post office in the town of Meteor. Both Canyon Diablo and Meteor have been abandoned and are now ghost towns in northern Arizona that can be explored.  

The crater was formed about 50,000 years ago when a nickel-iron meteorite approximately 160 feet across and traveling at a speed of 45,000 miles per hour impacted the Earth. (There is considerable debate on the meteorite's speed upon impact and some studies indicate the speed was closer to 29,000 miles per hour.) When the meteorite impacted the earth, the impact was equivalent to about 10 megatons of TNT exploding. Fortunately, the Earth's atmosphere vaporized about half of the meteorite's mass before striking the earth, or the impact explosion would have been much greater. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, NASA astronauts trained at Meteorite Carter in preparation for their trips to the moon.