The crater itself is off limits to "normal people"...only research scientists, people from NASA, and employees are allowed down there. The thing in the middle is actually an old mining operation. When the location was first discovered to be a meteor impact site the people who bought the land figured there was a giant lump of iron the same size as the crater hiding just a bit under the surface (didn't know that a much smaller piece of debris could cause such a huge hole). They bought the land with the intent to mine the left over ore and make a large profit. They never found anything. If you look really closely in the closest picture you can see a small cutout of an astronaut and an American flag. That gives you some sense of scale. The dark metal thing to the left is a steam boiler for a winch used during the mining operation, and is about 8-10 feet tall. The crater is roughly 500 feet deep at this point, but is thought to have been about 750 feet deep originally. It's now being slowly filled in by erosion (one of the reasons they don't want people going down).
And thank you for the comment about my mom's house. She is really proud of the place - it has taken her a very long time to be able to have her "dream house", and I couldn't be happier for her. She definitely has her own style (the glass in the fireplace and the copper tial around it are a pretty big indicator). Anyways, glad you are all enjoying the pictures...I still have a couple hundred to go :lol:
i love phoenix. Its one of my favorite places to go. I just love how everything is nice and dry. Nobody has to cut grass. everyone drives sweet cars. and there is an extremely low population of libtards
One of the biggest things I noticed this past trip was the lack of roadkill. I saw a sign at the Grand Canyon saying that each year more than 93 cars hit deer on the roads in AZ...I couldn't believe it - we have that many laying around in one county in any given month. They also said that each year 250 people get bitten by squirrels :lol: