Apparently at some time in the past it probably was pretty impressive, about 600 feet across and 100 feet deep. Today, however, there is no possible way that you would ever look at the area and think "hey that looks like a crater" The deepest it gets is 15 feet (according to the literature), though when you are there looking at it, it seems more like 5 feet. It is not bowl shaped or crater shaped. It is a generally lower lying area with lots of little bumps and lumps in it.
The site offers a small volunteer run museum complete with faded 1960's era postcards, various rocks behind glass and some models of planets. You can also walk on a short trail to the "bottom" of the crater. It's a pretty tough hike with an elevation change of upwards of 10 feet.
The good thing is that the experience is free, if I had to pay to look at west Texas scrubby landscape with oil pumps in the distance, I would not have been a happy camper. And now we can say that we have been to the Odessa Crater.
Also last Monday our search for something to do landed us at the (Ellen?) Noel Art Museum, a part of the UTPB campus. Apparently they are not actually open on Mondays, as the kindly older lady told us after we had already been walking around in there for 20 minutes. She was busy setting up for the tea they were hosting that afternoon so I guess she didn't notice us.
We had pulled up next to the museum because we noticed that there was a prairie dog town in the grassy field next to it and thought Sara might like to look at them. surprisingly enough the Prairie dogs didn't stay out of their holes as we got closer. Who'd a thunk, right? So as we were standing there, I suggested that we go in the museum because I happened to know that they had an exhibit running on quilts and buttons, and Iffy was just DYING to look at the historic buttons :) ha ha.
we approached the office door and some lady let us in, we didn't even know they weren't open, we just assumed that if someone was letting us in, they were probably open.
The quilts were not that exciting. They were all kinda plain designs on white backgrounds. Not much color. The buttons weren't necessarily that cool either. I was expecting more neat artistic little sculptural (make sense??) buttons, but it was really just someones button collection on display.
Next up: either the Commemorative Air Force Museum or the Petroleum Basin Museum.
Here are some pictures...
As a point of reference, the visitor center is at the elevation of the "rim" of the crater. Iffy and Sara are standing at the "bottom" of the crater. Look how deep it is!
This is the shaft at the center of the crater from when they dug down in there looking for the rock that made the crater. Beautiful isn't it?
Standing in front of the visitor center looking out over the "crater". Ooohh, amazing!
little kids in hoods are so cute!
2 comments:
Glad you made it out of the crater! Sounds like a hard day hike. I hope you had water!
That picture of Sara on top of Iffy's head (the close one) is just so sweet! Glad that you are getting out and about, even if it is a bit boring.
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