Day 11: Painted Desert and Petrified Forest

Now, just to make sure that we're all on the same page, Day 11 was Tuesday, June 22, 2009. We woke up in Holbrook, AZ, at a KAO that came equipped with this little bit of fun:



I began to question whether or not we really needed to even go to the Petrified Forest if I had it right here at the KOA.

For the record, petrified trees are not actually trees. They are rocks and minerals that replaced the organic matter in a tree gradually over thousands (millions?) of years.

Well, I lost, so we had to go to the Petrified Forest. That's fine because along the way, we saw this:


I've arrived at the point where it is futile to even ask what the hell this is all about. I just accept the reality of it and move on.

We reached the Petrified Forest, which we soon discovered is paired with the Painted Desert. Cool.


The park is a 30-mile drive through some of the most amazing scenery on the planet. Yes, these are photos of OUR planet! We began with a 22-mile drive through the Painted Desert.




This is the Painted Desert Inn, which has stood on this spot for about 60 years. It was pretty nifty, mostly because it's just stuck out there in the middle of nowhere.


We soon reached this cool place called "Puerco Pueblo," which is the ruins of an old 100-room building with a square in the middle. The ruins supposedly date back at least 800 years.



We discovered that ancient peoples, just like us, needed to leave their marks on their surroundings. Whether it was to say, "Og was here" or "I saw a buffalo today," people have always needed to communicate. I wondered, of course, if that kid got his hand slapped for writing on the walls.


Um, is that a giant bird carrying away a person? How does that happen?

This was another bit of ruins on which there are at least 200 distinct petroglyphs (images drawn on stone by ancient people).





Here are more images of the Painted Desert:



We then came to the Petrified Forest part of our story. Here, we saw the Agate Bridge, which is a petrified tree whose surrounding rock has eroded over time. The concrete support was placed there in the middle of the 20th century.


Yes, I, too, was disappointed when I learned that the Petrified Forest was NOT a big forest of trees frozen solid somehow like cartoons taught us. Scientists believe that some huge storm or series of storms tore down an entire forest of trees. We were never told what KIND of trees these are, but they looked like pine logs to me. You know how much I know about trees.

Anyhow, the trees were then blown into a giant river that pushed them way downstream until they reached shallower waters. There, the trees likely tangled in the plants growing on the bottom. Stuck there, they were covered with sediment for a bazillion years. Once the river dried up, the riverbed started eroding around the trees. Having had their organic matter replaced with semi-precious stones and minerals like quartz, agate, and amethyst, the petrified trees eroded MUCH more slowly than the surrounding matter, leaving miles and miles of stone trees for us to marvel at today. Yay!





There was a Petrified Forest Museum that featured skeletons of some of the dinosaurs that had been removed from the area. This one is very angry at Dave for wearing his hat indoors.


We saw this in the gift shop. We weren't sure if it was for a child or a dog. Hmmm...


More weird, random dinosaur stuff.



This was a hotel we saw on historic Route 66 in Arizona. It's the famous "Sleep in a Wigwam" hotel, but it appears to now be simply a museum to its past rather than a functioning hotel.





We then stopped at Joe and Aggie's Cafe. Yes, we found this place in our guide book, and it was WEIRD. It was crammed with all sorts of weird cluttered crap commemorating the heyday of Route 66. It was kind of like if a bunch of horders ran a restaurant. The food was definitely worth my nagging desire to clean.


Dave had some Mexican thing with green goop.


And I had some other Mexican thing with green goop. Delish!


Outside the restaurant, more crazy dinosaur crap.


Stan has the best slogan ever!


Something about this picture isn't sitting right with me. Why is the Mobil station in a geodesic dome? Is there something I'm missing?


From there, we went to see the Meteor Crater! Yay! Millions of years ago, a piece of crazy space rock fell from the sky and created this crater that is almost a mile across. Then, a hundred years ago, someone bought the land and started charging people fifteen bucks to go look down in it.



There was a museum inside that actually gave surprisingly well-researched information. I was expecting some hokey crap, but it had actual science in there.

OK, so there was a little bit of hokey crap. Since we are not permitted to hike down into the crater, you can have your picture taken with a backdrop that makes it look like you went down there. It was so realistic! (???)


This place was on the grounds of Meteor Crater,and we found out that it was apartments for the employees. This was fascinating to us! You mean you live on the grounds of your workplace? Your workplace is a meteor crater? Awesome! One man told us that he has his "fifth wheel" (road code for a huge RV trailer) in Flagstaff. After several nights at campgrounds, I'm starting to realize that there are a LOT more people than we know who are living in RVs either in one place or nearly constantly in motion. Wow.


We saw several signs like this. If you look closely, you can see that it is warning you of "baby calves" in the roadway.


The following pictures are collectively referred to as the "old-ass cars." "Did you see those old-ass cars? We need to stop and check that out." Do we? Really? Do we NEED to? I don't think so. Of course, I gave in. There is a LOT that you need to know about this scene. First of all, it was a good five minute walk from our car--parked on the shoulder of some road in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona--out in the middle of a field.



You may also have noticed the incredible number of GUN SHOT HOLES in these cars. It quickly became clear from the literal carpet of broken glass and tin cans that this has been a place kids use for firing practice for at least 50 years. It was really creepy, to say the least.

After that little excursion, we decided to get a place to stay near Sedona. We seem to keep finding places on this trip that have some sort of weird animal situation. This pup was the resident tour guide at LoLoMai Springs Outdoor Resort in CORNVILLE, AZ. She came with us on this golf cart as we were escorted to our camping spot, which was about 25 feet from Oak Creek.


How many animals can you find in this next picture?


This was taken immediately outside the office of the "resort" (read as: campground). Can you see the kitty? Where's the kitty? Can you see the raccoon? Point to the raccoon? Do you see a skunk? Where's a skunk?

Apparently, these people have no problem with the fact that as many as three raccoons and three skunks feast on their cat's crunchies every night.

Later that night, Dave saw a skunk walk by outside our van while we were eating dinner. Then, in the middle of the night, we smelled said skunk. UGH! Lucky for us, the smell passed very quickly.

And so ended Day 11. On Day 12, Kerry and Dave go driving around looking at rocks. Big rocks! Yay!