Watch out for falling METEORS and Stonehenge!!!!

Being the typical tourist everywhere we go the first thing we do is check the areas visitors centers and websites for area attractions.  We will be in the Odessa/Midland area for 6 weeks so we definitely wanted to find some fun stuff to do.  Today we headed out with my daughter and Granddaughters to find a couple of them but not before going to lunch.  We ended up at a little Italian restaurant called Mi Piaci' that my daughter really likes & I love Italian so it was a go for me.  I had the best dish I have had in a long long time... Chicken Verona

mushrooms, artichokes, asparagus, and white wine cream sauce - baked with mozzarella cheese... Yummo! To die for!!!

Mi Piaci Restaurant - Odessa, Texas ~ Ralph's Huge Stromboli ~ Hannah & her Calzone ~ My Chicken Verona (YUM)

After lunch we were off in search of the Odessa Meteor Crater.  The Odessa Meteor Crater is the largest of several smaller craters in the immediate area that were formed by the impact of thousands of octahedrites (an iron metallic type) that fell in prehistoric times.  There was a museum and the site to tour when we arrived there.  The museum was filled with meteor fragments and a lot of history about the area and crater.

It is 550 feet in diameter and the age is estimated to be around 63,500 years .The crater is exposed to the surface, and was originally about 100 feet deep. Due to subsequent infilling by soil and debris, the crater is currently 15 feet deep at its lowest point, which provides enough relief to be visible over the surrounding plains. Still, the site offers an excellent opportunity to view a relatively uncommon impact feature close to a major transportation artery near a major city.

 

It was a fun visit and good to do some walking after such a big lunch.... After we finished checking out the Meteor site we headed to Stonehenge ~ no not in England but the full scale replica over at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa.  About 20 stone blocks, similar in size, shape, and appearance to the ancient Stonehenge in southwestern England, were unveiled in the summer of 2004. The replica matches the original Stonehenge horizontally, but it falls some 14% short in height from the English monument. The tallest stone on the original is 22 feet, while the highest in the Odessa is 19 feet. 

While the original may have taken 2000 years to complete, the replica was placed at UTPB in six weeks. The stones were moved two at a time on tractor-trailers and lifted into place on footings made of reinforced concrete. The original Stonehenge marked the summer and winter solstices. Each stone weighs more than 20,000 thousand pounds and is composed of limestone slabs donated from the quarry of TexaStone of Garden City in Glasscock near Big Spring, Texas. It was a fun visit and the best part is that it is FREE.

 It was a great day with our family and I sure wished our other daughter could have been with us.

Come on back and follow our adventures...

Have Fun & Travel Safe