This past weekend my family spent a few days up in the Flagstaff area. My wife had this great idea that we should go see a few of the national monuments in that area since we had the ability to get a national park pass, and Veteran’s Day was a free national park day as well.
So we found an AirBnB to stay at in Flagstaff earlier in the week and Friday morning we loaded up the car and headed north. We hit Walnut Canyon NM first. It is a place where there are a lot of ancient Native American cliff dwellings from the 1100’s. It was pretty cool to see. We wandered the two paths they have there. It is amazing to me that the people back then decided to build complex homes in the side of the mountain. I mean, think of the time it took to truck rocks around and then to have to go up and down daily to get water, food, etc.
After that we headed into Flagstaff, and again my wife had this great idea to head over to Lowell Observatory. I had never been there so I was open to it. We got there and wandered around in the daylight some. We got to see a very good telescope that was setup to look at the sun. That was neat. We also got to see the Clark telescope and the telescope that discovered Pluto, which was all done with 14×17 photographic plates. Then we came back that evening and got to look through the Clark telescope (127 years old) and some other scopes they had set up. We saw Jupiter through the Clark (24” refractor). It was pretty neat. It certainly made me want to get my scope out more again. We also decided to become members for the year at the observatory because the up-charge was small (only $14 more), it get us into other science centers around the world (Questicon in Canberra that we went to over the summer for example), and a discount at the gift shop (where we bought a bunch of stuff and saved more than $14).
The next day we went to Sunset Crater NM and Wupatki NM. We wandered the lava fields at Sunset and then headed to Wupatki and saw the pueblos there. One of the pueblos was pretty cool looking as it was built on top of a rock formation that allowed it to be raised a bit. Other than that the time at the parks was kind of blah. Not too much to do and saw the same things over and over (with slight differences). That evening we went back to Lowell since we had the membership. It was super crowded that night. We went to a show about color and they talked about spectroscopy and the lady burned different things to show us the colors they produce. That was neat to see. We got to see Saturn and the Andromeda Galaxy, and then we saw Jupiter again through the Clark. That night was much clearer and I was able to see 4 bands on Jupiter which was cool. Again I really need to get my telescope out more.
Yesterday we checked out of the AirBnb and headed home, but we decided to drive through Sedona and then we headed to Montezuma’s Well NM and Montezuma’s Castle NM. I didn’t know about the well before and that was interesting. Over 1.6 millions gallons of water comes up through an underground spring every day there. It was interesting. The “castle” was exactly what you see in the pictures – another pueblo/cliff dwelling.
My kids became Jr Rangers at all 5 NM. That brings our total up to 40 I think (plus or minus 1). That is so much fun and helps create the memories.
I wasn’t sure about the trip before we headed out, but it ended up being a good trip overall. We got to see some interesting things, and I got more inspired to get my telescope out more often. I am going to also try and relearn how to use my good telescope camera as well. I am thankful that my wife wanted to go on this trip.