A Journey To Flagstaff  -  Aug 16th, 2009 8:06pm

I spent almost 6 years living in Flagstaff while I was going to school at NAU.  During that time I learned to love the town, and I thought I had experienced most of what it had to offer.  Turns out I was wrong, as I just got back from a fantastic trip to Flag where I got to visit Sunset Crater, Lowel Observatory, and the Lava Tubes - 3 things I had somehow missed during my life there?

I joined Mccoy and Kellie this time around.  They are great traveling companions - low maintenance folk like myself who are always up for whatever madness might be in store.  We left early Saturday morning and after fueling up with a high density breakfast of SweetTarts, beef jerky, and potato chips, we headed north - straight for Meteor Crater.

For anyone who hasn't been like myself -- Sunset/Meteor Crater is just that... the impact zone for a truck sized rock that hit ages ago.  Its about a half hour northeast of Flagstaff and apparently has visiting hours just like most holes in the ground do not have.  I'm not sure what govt agency runs that place but its apparently underfunded as they require 15 bucks to walk in the gate.  Not the worst spent money in the world as they have a cool little museum and some free viewing scopes, but it was a little odd.  A pretty impressive site overall & stunningly windy up on the rim.

After leaving the crater we made a pit-stop at "Kamp".  A strange roadside hazard that exists just south of the crater.  Not sure what drew me to the place - at first I thought it might have been an active scout camp or something.  As we turned off and drove up though, it became obvious that a former highway stop had been abandoned years ago and become a hangout in the middle of nowhere.  The pictures do a better job of describing this oddity...  A strangely beautiful ghetto.

We eventually stopped off at the hotel, then drove west of Flagstaff to visit the Lava Tubes.  They aren't the easiest thing to find.  The road is marked once you get close, but I didn't see any signage from the highway.  A few miles down a forestry road, we found a small parking lot and something that looked like a great big well.  Even when we got close it didn't look like what it really is - a mile long cave open to public exploration.

This isn't hard core spelunking, but its not exactly accessible either.  The first few hundred yards are pretty treacherous, and the cave is damp and cold (@50 degrees) year round.  Entering is like descending into Golum's home.  Its dark beyond black and something about the structure absorbs sound putting you in a state of complete sensory deprivation.  The cave is one long subway tunnel with a few 3 or 4 foot crawls.  Its almost completely devoid of life and structure save for what the lava left behind.  Its very eerie and a truly magnificent place.

It took us a little over 2 hours to make it to the end and back  - @3/4 a mile.  I loved every minute of the experience, but I was very happy to see sunlight.  Something about the lack of sensory input makes you a little wonky.  I think we were all happy to get on the road and head out towards Lowel Observatory.

I can't say much about the observatory as it was getting dark when we arrived.  I think if I visit again, I'll go before sunset so that I can check out the telescopes themselves.  They seemed like monstrous steampunk creations in the red glow from the observation lights.  We got a chance to look through the biggest one, a 26 inch refractory scope pointed at a star cluster.  Much blurrier than I expected, but still pretty damn cool.

We didn't stay at the observatory long because Kellie was wiped out and hadn't slept in a day or so.  The trip was capped off by a dinner at Beaver St.(their brambleberry brew is my favorite beer on earth) and a breakfast at Bacon in Scottsdale - I'll have to do a separate write up on that soon.  For now I'm spent and its time to take a rest.  Thanks for the great trip guys, can't wait for our next adventure :)