To the Petrified Forest!

Friday 9/7

We were on our way from hot Phoenix by 5am, where it was already 82 degrees in the shade.  By 6am we'd climbed 1000 feet and dropped to 75.  Interestingly, the highway seemed to be the dividing line between rainstorms to our left and sunny skies to our right.   We stopped for a Saguaro Cactus photo opp

Nils and his cactus impression.  Sorry about the darkness, the sun had not come up yet.

and a good thing too, as they disappeared from the roadside very shortly thereafter.  Not only the Saguaros were noteworthy, also a sign for Byler's Amish Kitchen.  Not something I expected to see in arid Arizona. Apparently they have very good pies, but we did not stop for a sample.

By 8am we had climbed 2000 feet in elevation, and instead of saguaros and palm trees in the Walmart parking lot, there were pin oaks and fir trees.  We took a little rest and did some shopping before continuing east (the first time we've gone significantly to the East since July 19th) toward the NE corner of Arizona.  We stopped briefly at the Meteor Crater Impact Site, but didn't feel like spending $18 to go see it.  Fortunately, we got a brochure with pictures, which was the next best thing to being there.  It was formed 50,000 years ago; the impact  left a crater almost a mile across and 550+ feet deep.  Because the crater floor's terrain is so similiar to the lunar surface, it is an official training site for NASA Apollo astronauts.  Anyway, if you ever want to go, it's on I-40, 35 miles east of Flagstaff. It's basically a hellatiously big hole in the ground, and actually quite impressive.

But we had other fish to fry, namely the Petrified Forest.  Contrary to our expectations, it was NOT a forest of standing petrified trees.  We'd seen one petrified tree in Yellowstone and it was quite underwhelming (you couldn't get close to it as it was protected by a Victorian wrought iron fence.  It looked like your typical dead tree).  Well, petrified wood really has to be touched to be appreciated--it's the ultimate fakeout.  Looks like wood, and is hard like stone (and HEAVY).  Ancient trees fell down, were covered with silica ash (from a volcano) and then completely buried in dirt and chemicals which caused the wood fiber to be exchanged for mineral deposits. This transformation took place over millenia, often with fantastically colorful results.

Pretty gorgeous, isn't it?  and HARD AS A ROCK

In the Petrified Forest, everything from whole trunks of trees (usually cracked over time into 2-3 foot long logs) to small fragments were just lying around on the ground.  Everywhere.  They had gradually emerged from the ground (as it wore away)...some still looked half-buried, the rest just lying there as if someone just dumped a load of them on the ground in assorted locations.   It was kind of messy, actually---but fascinating and quite beautiful as well.

Here I am next to a particularly long one, and amazingly intact

See what I mean about "littered"?  They're lying around like this everywhere you look

And lest you think I was kidding.....

We saw our first Roadrunners scurrying across the road at one point (they really DO run, although their legs do not make a circular blur like in the cartoons).  And we heard our first coyotes howling in the middle of the night.   We were camping for free in the parking lot of one of two competing gift shops right across the road from each other near the entrance to the park.  They sold lots of stuff made from petrified wood (none of it collected in the park, which is illegal)---from tumbled pebbles up to small table top size (which cost many thousands of dollars for 1" thick and about 30" across), like the most gorgeous granite you've ever seen, only harder.  The salesady told me that one of the small coffee tables  had been tipped over by some boisterous children (who were climbing on it at the time).  She then showed me the big dent in the floor.  In other words, this is a table top that could break the floor, not the other way around.

Those are very heavy and very valuable hunks of petrified wood right behind our RV. Guess people assume they're too heavy to steal?