We had originally planned to go to the Petrified Forest on our second full day in northern Arizona, but we didn’t get to see everything on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon the first day, so we decided to check out Meteor Crater and then drive up a different road, through the Navajo reservation, and visit the Desert View Watchtower.

Meteor Crater is, as the name suggests, a huge crater caused by a meteorite hitting the Earth about 50,000 years ago. It’s just off U.S. 40 near Winslow… which means it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. But it’s really cool to be driving in the flat desert and see how the meteor pushed the ground up around the sides of the crater.

They also have some museum-type exhibits about asteroids and the scientist who discovered and verified the crater, but the real draw is the giant hole in the ground. The above photo, with the walkway and tiny people in it, should give you a decent idea of how huge this thing is.

Admission is kinda expensive, but active-duty military gets in free (and military spouses get a discount), so make sure you pull out that ID card if you go.

After Meteor Crater, we drove back west on 40 and up Highway 89, had lunch at Cameron Trading Post (which I’ll tell you more about later) and turned on Highway 64 to get to the Desert View Watchtower.

The view from the watchtower is — as you can see above — absolutely breathtaking. Even just standing at the viewing area at the bottom of the tower, you can look out at the edge of the canyon and see the Colorado River and the painted desert to the east.

The watchtower itself was built in the 1930s to mimic ancient Indian watchtowers, and features murals by a Hopi artist. You can climb to the top for an even better view of the canyon.

After taking a trillion photos at the watchtower, we headed west toward the Visitor’s Center, stopping at nearly every overlook on the way.

It’s a bit of a haul from the watchtower to the visitor’s center, so we ended up stopping at Grandview Point to watch the sunset. There were a lot more people there than at some of the other viewpoints, but it wasn’t as crowded as the area near the Bright Angel trail or the visitor’s center area. Still, there were definitely people making poor decisions…

…which totally freaked me out. We walked down a bit on the trail to check out the view and the sunset, and so I wouldn’t stress about people tempting fate.

We had planned to hike a bit more and get a bit further west by dusk, but Grandview Point ended up being a perfect place to watch the sunset! And I’m really glad we were able to see the Desert View Watchtower and some of the other overlooks along the drive. Totally worth it.

(You might recognize my Patagonia vest from my Afghanistan post. My shirt is on sale now at J.Crew, and my sunglasses are from the Kate Spade outlet.)