Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

June 6, 2013, Thursday

Another early morning.  We have got to stop this.  We had breakfast and I packed a lunch.  We are spending the day at Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert.  Since there is nothing inside the park we are going to have a picnic. 

The last time we were here was with Nick when he was very young.  I think he was less than 10 years old.  I wonder if he remembers?  I think he might remember the curse on the petrified wood if you took it outside the park.  It is suppose to bring bad luck.  Many years ago, both before and after it became a National Monument, people used to take large pieces out of the park.  Luckily, a lot of it still exists and is now protected. 

We decided to go into the South entrance to the park as it would take us through Holbrook, or at least what there is of Holbrook.  Since Route 66 is no longer “the Mother Road”,  most of these little towns  have died.  66 still exists in places and Holbrook is one of those.  Once at the park we showed our National Park passes and got in for free. 

Scientists say that a long, long, long time ago this area of Arizona was a swampy jungle and it was located over 2000 miles away from where it is now.  In fact, it was attached to Africa.  How can they tell this?  Anyway, the conditions were right for the trees in the area to become petrified.   There are many almost complete trees and many parts.  Sometimes you wonder if they are really trees or really rocks. 

 

We did stop for lunch at one of the viewpoints that had a covered bench area.  We had brought cheese, meat and crackers for our lunch, along with a lot of water.  It is HOT here.  We enjoyed our rest and lunch then continued our visit.  One area we saw – Newspaper rock had some interesting petrographs (or  ancient etchings) on them.  

 

The last part of our visit covered the Painted Desert.  We had some clouds that came up in the afternoon so some of the colors were not as bright as we had hoped.  It also depends on the time of day you arrive as to how the colors look. 

 

We stopped and visited the Painted Desert Inn, a Historical Landmark. 

 

Once we got back to the RV I fixed a nice dinner of leftovers.  We had the steak, scalloped potatoes and creamed corn.  It was even good the second time around.  Oh, I took pictures of OK RV Park so here they are.

 

Here are all the pictures I took, if you are interested in them.  Remember, you can double click on the slide show and it will take you t Picasa where you can enlarge the pictures.