The Petrified Forest & Painted Desert

The journey to Holbrook, Arizona where the national park is, takes about 5 hours from Sunsites.  Decided to do a few geocaches along the way, however could not find a single one!  I did find out that cacti must be carnivorous.  They can throw thorns at you and draw blood quickly!  In looking for a cache I had to pass by two cacti.  Did not even feel a scratch but happened to look down at my leg to see a couple dozen holes and several thorns and long scratches.  So many lessons to learn, grrrrr.

 Some of the sights along the way:

Thought this was a particularly cool picture.

After getting to Holbrook, I tried one more geocache, but had to try again the next day on my way to the national park.  Took my picture with the holder of the cache:






Before going to the park there is a store/museum that contains displays of artifacts that had been discovered in the park.  Quite suprising!

Phytosorus, mamoth trunk, turtle shell

The colors that show up in the petrified wood is amazing, even when its not been polished.

He's kinda scary even petrified!

 This is a piece that has been polished but it looks like a picture of  the petrified forest (its just coincidence).

 Would you like this gorgeous table?  Only $4,300 will send it home with you!

 

Into the park and to the Crystal Forest, to the Teepees, to Blue Ridge, Puerco Pueblo:

 It is almost as if a logger came and sawed these into even chunks, but they actually just fractured that way!

 This picture to the right is of a petrified log that is somewhat intact, hasn't completely fractured into chunks.

 Sorry for the blurriness, tried three times to get a good picture of this log that is 40+ feet long but the wind was blowing so hard that I just couldn't get a clear picture.

This must have been the root end as it is more fractured than the other "cuts".

This area looked like what would be seen where someone had used a chainsaw to cut up wood.  There are "wood" chips all over, but they are all petrified pieces.

 These petroglyphs are estimated to be from 800 to 2000 years ago.  Notice the cross type symbol and the animals and then the symbols in this picture of maybe stairs?  Pagan influence got everywhere, didn't it?

Some of the views are just incredible.  Miles and miles of pink.  It is interesting to read the estimates that man has made about the age of things.  The petrified forest is said to have been alive 24 million years ago.  Something blew the forests down and then they were are covered up until it was uncovered by the Colorado River.  Won't it be interesting to find out what really happened?

That's all for now!  TTFN! lj