Wanderlust, Part III

Birds chirping, a taxiing airplane, and the rising sun shining into my tent woke me – a much more auspicious daybreak than the last. I had the luxury of using the visiting pilots’ bathroom facilities for morning ablutions. The weather gods smiled upon me yet again, and I was soon on my way west, to fly over Sedona, staying low enough to ogle the scenery below me.

I had seen many photographic essays on the beauty of the landscape in the canyons around Sedona. They didn’t do justice to what I saw in the early morning light. I had originally planned to stop at the Sedona airport, which perches precariously on top of a red rock butte south of town, but decided that no ground tour could compare with my air tour. I used nearly a whole roll of film as I meandered along like a child examining pretty pebbles in a streambed. The air was crystal clear, the sky’s cobalt blue accentuated by the adobe-red cliffs, and fringes of deep green pinon pines drew a ragged line between earth and sky. I wanted to linger there, but knew that the Sedan, quiet and ladylike as she was, might annoy folks on the ground with her humming. I reluctantly turned north to follow the canyon to Flagstaff.

The Sedan began to puff a bit as she climbed to clear the terrain. Finally I could level off and turn east again, heading for Winslow. Something was ringing a little bell in my head about a fact tucked away long ago. Winslow, Winslow…oh, yes, the meteor crater! I could see it from ten miles away, a huge round hole in the plateau. I stared down in awe, imagining the cataclysm created by quite a small meteor. It’s difficult to judge depth from the air, but the crater’s diameter was certainly impressive. There were no neat section line fences in the area for comparison, but it appeared to be more than a mile across. There was a shiny white rock visitor’s center built on the very edge of the rim. It only served to emphasize man’s insignificance when measured against a mighty force of nature. I wondered what the dust cloud it must have created looked like – perhaps like an atomic bomb?

Instead of following Interstate 40, I cut to the northeast across some of the most desolate country I had ever seen. There were many stretches of skillet-flat pans with no sign of human activity. It occurred to me that it would be a long lonely wait if I had to make an emergency landing. I listened to the Sedan’s heartbeat with greater attention, checking gauges, monitoring fuel quantity, and trying to see Gallup, New Mexico, beyond the distant horizon. When I finally cleared the last gulch and ridge to descend for landing, the heat of mid-day felt like a furnace blast. I remembered my landing lesson from Cottonwood, and this time the Sedan showed some grace on touchdown. I made a quick fuel turn-around, anxious to leave before the temperature increased to the point where the Sedan wouldn’t be able to struggle off the runway. I got a good look at numerous Gallup backyards as we clawed for enough altitude to clear the Continental Divide to the east.

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