After leaving the Grand Canyon behind, we set out eastbound again, hoping to see a little bit more beautiful scenery in Arizona and New Mexico before the dreaded Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas stretch.
We made our way through Flagstaff (quite a charming town, I might add) until we reached the Petrified Forest National Park. This park is pretty much made to be a detour off the interstate, so why not? After feeling like we were basically driving into oblivion, a visitor's center showed up and we were able to get out and walk among the petrified wood.
Petrified wood is actually pretty cool. Long story short- an ancient braided river carried the logs along, which was then covered by volcanic ash that prevented the logs from going through the decaying process. They are scattered all around this desert, and after years of people commercializing and making money off petrified wood, the national park was established. They are now VERY serious about people not taking the petrified wood.
As we continued to drive through the park, other interesting formations showed up such as these, called The Teepees.
In this area, there were also ancient people (Puebloans) who established towns (pueblos) in this desert and throughout the Southwest. Here, there are some ancient ruins of a town and also petroglyphs that they made on rocks. This was pretty cool. They even have a rock that marks the summer solstice by a sliver of light that shines through it precisely on the right day.
The last part of the park is the Painted Desert, named for its various colors in rock formations.
The landscape is harsh and desolate, but it does have that tragically beautiful thing going for it, which is something to be appreciated. We can't all be the Grand Canyon, right? :)
No comments:
Post a Comment