Petrified Wood & Franklin's Hole
An Uncustomary Anniversary
Rambling down I-40 at 90 miles per hour in my hooker-red Dodge Challenger, my husband and I spot another sign for “Meteor Crater.” The first time my husband saw one of these signs, he laughed. Now he seems a little more open to the idea.
“Maybe the meteor crater will be really cool.”
Uh oh…
***
We had just spent hours in the Petrified Forest in New Mexico—a national park that my beloved wanted to see crossed off his list but not spend too much time in. As usual, I was patient. He is a completionist and gets FOMO when it comes to sightseeing. We stopped at nearly every overlook at a 221,000-acre national park that he didn’t care about seeing in the first place. He got the hint when I told him the petrified logs in the distance were starting to look like little turds glinting in the vast nothingness. Turd mirages.
Despite the shit-themed sarcasm I’d hurled at him, I was thrilled to get away with my husband on our 5th anniversary road trip. At first, he was a little reluctant to have our yearly getaway in May. He’d suggested waiting for a month or two. The economic situation we were facing at home felt like we were navigating a wasteland. We’d just bought a portable AC to keep our house in Colorado Springs under 85 degrees once the warmer weather rolled in, and that extra $500 plus the extra $700 per month we were paying the midwife were adding up. That said, I needed a break. I was now in my second trimester with our first baby, and I felt tired and overworked. After the sheer exhaustion I faced in my first trimester, I worried that I wouldn’t feel like heading off on an adventure once the money situation eased. Not only would the hormones be surging again in trimester three, but the temps would soar sky high as well. As usual, after a little insistence on my part, he indulged me.
We trekked back to the car, hopped in, and as we approached the Petrified Forest Park exit and saw the park ranger trucks, my husband started to panic. “Oh shit! Oh shit!”
“What?”
“I took some. The park rangers are checking cars for petrified wood, and I took some!”
It was two days before our “wood” wedding anniversary, and he had been joking about it. I didn’t think he’d actually take some… “Throw it out the fucking window, then!” Is he seriously that fucking cheap that he stole a piece of wood from a national park—with all these signs saying that you will be fined for doing so?
He started to slow down, looking behind him to check for cars, then turned to me and grinned.
He’s so cute. So proud of himself for tricking me. I love this man. “Good one.” Credit where credit’s due.
Traveling has been a part of our relationship since we met, being from different countries and both with a deep connection to our families. We aren’t conventional vacationers. For one, we have never had a cocktails-on-the-beach vacation together. Though compared to the New Mexico desert in late spring, a beach doesn’t sound half bad… Typically, we plan our trips around family, and when we do explore, just the two of us, our trips are more like little “quests.” My husband had suggested we go to Roswell, New Mexico. I’ve been an X-Files fan since I was eight years old. It was a sweet idea, but I wanted to go somewhere a little more romantic, so I insisted on Sedona. Working in the self-help/spirituality world as an editor, I’d heard a lot about the place and was more than a little curious about the energy vortexes. I guess my curiosity was still a little Mulder-esque…
The first trip we went on together, after dating for about six months and having committed to moving back to America from Ireland together, was to Cornwall to visit several mythic King Arthur sites (not only am I a Sci-Fi nerd but a fantasy one too). Getting to places like Bodmin Moor and Tintagel Castle wasn’t easy, as I was in my early twenties with only my Colorado driver’s license. Still, I managed to find a small company that would rent me a car—a minivan for the small country roads, I might add. That was back when my husband, then-boyfriend, didn’t have his driver’s license because for some reason Europeans don’t view that aspect of adulthood as particularly important…
The desert road drags on. He's tired of driving and wants to stop. But he won’t let me have a turn…. Oh how the worm has turned…. “Should we see the crater?” he asks.
“Sounds good, babe!” I indulge him. I always indulge him, just like he indulges me, but we let each other know how much we do it and how lucky we are.
We turned off at “Meteor City.” It was a joke. Maybe even an intentional prank. “Meteor City” is a shack at the end of a long dusty road that sold meteor crater merch once upon a time. There was nothing and no one there. I thought it was a little funny. I wonder how many people this exit has fooled? Hubs was irritated. Someone can dish out the pranks but can’t take them, it seems.…
After turning around and navigating back to the highway, we finally arrived at the next exit: “Meteor Crater Road.” After driving a couple miles, we landed at the Meteor Crater Visitor Center and went inside. The entry fee was $29 per person to see the crater and the museum. “Should we?” my husband asked. After all this, now he’s waffling over the price…
“Go for it, honey. Let’s see this meteor crater!!”
Guided tours were held every 40 minutes, so we headed to get refreshments and take a look at the gift shop.
“Thirty dollars for a hat! We’ve already been raped!” my darling husband exclaims.
I look around. Kids everywhere. The type of humans who would be interested in a meteor crater. My mouth agape, I look him dead in the eyes and whisper, “What is wrong with you? You can’t say raped in front of children. What if they ask their parents what that means? What are they going to say?” Our child will turn out to be a barbarian if his father doesn’t get his mouth under control.
“Well, honey, they’ll say, ‘It’s what happens when someone pays $58 to go see a meteor crater.’”
I burst out laughing. Sometimes I’m taken aback by my husband’s use of language in public. But then again, he comes from a country that refers to menses as “the jammy rag” or being “on the blob.” The Irish are uncouth and unrefined—part of the appeal for me, I suppose. Makes up for the fact that they don’t drive…
We finally walked up the stairs to our goal, the hole, and it was…a massive dent in the ground! Rather than contemplating the mysteries of the universe, astrological phenomena, the wonders of our human existence, my first thought was, It’d probably be cool to ride a dirt bike around in there, up and down the steep walls. I’d never even ridden a dirt bike, but my colonizer, capitalist mind had started to run wild from boredom. I was staring at a hole, fantasizing about a sport I’d never tried. Try as I might, I just couldn’t force myself to be deep like this crater.
Couldn’t even try dirt biking now—it would be unsafe for the baby. I smiled and placed my hands on my belly. We had waited, at my insistence, for over four years after getting married to try for a child. As a hyper-responsible firstborn, I wanted everything to be just right—a house with room for children, economic security, and the ability to be a full-time mom while the kids were little. (Such high standards, I know…) Then, in my early thirties, I had started to worry that my eggs were probably drying up; that my womb was becoming more and more of a desert itself. So, I decided, “Fuck it. Let’s have a kid.”
My husband, raised Irish Catholic, had been insisting on a baby for years. He’s pretty much been baby crazy since we met. I remember him saying to me, about a month after we had started seriously dating, with a sparkle in his eyes, “If we had a baby, it would be pretty cool.” No, I didn’t run—because I didn’t have any clothes on at the time….
He’s more in touch with nature than I am—and he’s more in touch with his nature. He knows in his DNA that children are his birthright. The Irish tend to have larger families and don’t fret as much about money as Americans do. Another thing I love about his heritage.
We ended up opting out of the tour—which was just a walk around part of the rim of the crater with a tour guide. There were so many people on the tour; I doubted they could even hear the tour guide. It was in the upper 80s, full sun, and the tour guide’s audience looked miserable. I turned to my husband, and in my best Butthead voice I said, “That poor guy gives professional rim jobs.”
I got a smile and an eye roll. Good enough for me.
When we got inside the museum, we discovered lots of useful information on asteroids, craters, and space exploration. I enjoyed playing with the simulator, where you could create your own asteroid, customizing the material, speed, and surface area, and launch it straight at the Earth. Cue inner Beavis: I am the great destroyer! Big rock! Fire!
Apparently, there was a near-endless search for the asteroid that caused this meteor crater. This dude Barringer was obsessed with it. Man obsessed with a hole. Figures… However, the most important piece of information I got from a young, enthusiastic tour guide is that the first written report of the crater, made in 1871, was by a man named Franklin who served as a scout with General Custer, and for years the crater was referred to as Franklin's Hole. I couldn’t contain myself at this knowledge, grinning ear to ear. Quest complete. This little tidbit of information was totally worth it.
Back on the road, my husband refreshed, in good spirits, and once again hogging the wheel exclaimed, “I love the desert!” He does love the desert—the emptiness, the solitude. I can appreciate it. Love is too strong of a word for me. I like the sun, the heat, and it feels cleaner here. I even felt a moment of pure joy in the Petrified Forest—when I spotted a little yellow wildflower growing in the sandy soil. Its resilience and beauty provided a momentary source of inspiration, reminding me of my little sprouting seed.
This little trip would probably be our last little anniversary getaway, just the two of us, for a while. With a baby on the way, things are going to change forever. For one, we won’t be able to piss away $58 to see a hole in the ground!
I can see for what seems like hundreds of miles out the front windshield, but I can’t see the future. The great unknown is definitely a little scary. I know when this baby comes, my husband and I are going to have to bust our butts to provide and be the type of present parents we want to be, but that’s OK. We are wildflowers—strong in harsh conditions. We’re able to tackle whatever life throws at us with love, devotion…and a sprinkle of humor like a refreshing Irish spring in the arid landscape. I know that despite whatever harsh conditions we find ourselves in, we’ll thrive.
I turn towards my husband and whisper in his ear, “Babe, you just passed a cop and you’re going ninety.”
The white sheen on his face and the look of horror in his eyes let me know that I’d gotten him back, and when he turns to look at me, I put on my very best cheeky grin.
For more humorous essays, check out Greenwoman founder Sandra Knauf’s memoir, Please Don’t Piss on the Petunias: Stories About Raising Kids, Crops & Critters in the City, available on Amazon. For bulk orders of any of our books or magazines, send us a private message!
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I've driven that Hwy so many times. Thanks for the memories ❤️
Love love love getting to see all your pictures! Thank you for making me laugh and melting my heart 🥹💖