Day 17: Welcome to Triassic Park

Today was a great day. When our car originally broke down, we thought we would have to drive straight to San Diego and cut out both Canyon De Chelly and the Painted Desert. But once our heads cleared, we decided we could do the Painted Desert and that's what we did today.

The Painted Desert is inside of Petrified Forrest National Park. We first traveled to the Painted Desert, and it's quite a beautiful palette of muted pastels. It got its name when Coronado came through the area and saw the hues in the rocks and described as "the painted desert."

From there we got onto the road, part of which is historic Route 66, and travelled to ancient Pueblonean ruins and went on a guided tour of native dwellings. The buildings there are not the kind you see at Canyon De Chelly, but are only partially excavated ones; meaning they looked like foundations of buildings, when in fact the rest of the walls and such are still beneath the ground being protected from the elements and humans. We also saw petroglyphs the natives left there thousands of years ago. The differences between pictographs and petroglyphs is that petroglyphs are carved and pictograms are painted. Apparently there are some pictographs in the park, but they are in a remote and protected area. The most common drawings found here are petroglyphs.

After that we traveled and stopped off at many pullovers taking pictures and seeing the general sites. But our final stop was truly our best. It is called Crystal Forest. Before the park was a National Park, during the turn of the last century, this field was covered in petrified logs that glistened in the sun and had been there for 225 million years. Back then all the continents were still joined together. That area of Arizona was a sub tropical climate located near present day Panama. In this land there were HUGE trees and all kinds of Triassic animals that resembled crocodiles, rhinoceros, and other pre-dinosaur creatures. Over time these trees fell into a river and floated down stream till they reached a flood plain and sank to the bottom when they were completely water-logged. Then layers of sand, ash, etc. were piled on top. The silica in the ash seeped through the pourous wood and reacted chemically with it. As time marched on, the silica replaced the wood cell by cell with stone and other semi-precious rocks. Resulting in beautiful colors wrapped around petrified bark.

Today the filed is almost barren; only a few of the pieces of petrified wood remain. People have been stealing it since the railroad came by and established a link to the remote area. The pilfering of the wood is what made the park become a park so it can be protected. But that still hasn't stopped people. The rangers estimate that 1 ton of petrified wood is stolen from the park each month; soon there will not be any petrified wood left at all.

However the park has been fighting back. They do vehicle checks on the way out and they like to permiate the idea that there is a curse upon stealing rocks from the park. It isn't something they came up with and they do not tell it over and over again, but reminders are here and there about it. Each year the park gets tons of mail and packages with pieces of petrified wood and other rocks from the park. In the letters some tell of how terrible their luck has been since they've stolen a piece of the park and are hoping it will change when they return the property. They do not seem to follow up on it though. Would be an interesting investigation.

Alie and i very much enjoyed the park. Our hike around Crystal Forrest was very beautiful despite the thefts. I got a good bunch of pictures mostly macro shots that I will post soon. We could not help but think about what it would've been like if people were not so greedy with the petrified wood and left it there for all to see. I'd imagine it would rank up there with the colors and sites we saw in Carlsbad Caverns or even the painted desert. But alas people are greedy and the view of Crystal Forrest is lost to history, at least now we still get to see what is left and that is still worth the trip.

I've typed a lot here, but I cannot elave with some quick stats for you all

We are still in AZ so it keeps us at 35% of the Nation.
But that does not mean we haven't gone anywhere.
We travelled 430miles
at an overall avgerage of 64.8mph
and a moving average of 67.8mph.
It took us 6h and 38m
with 6h and 20m of moving time
stopping for only 18m and 7s
Wrong Turns: 0 Its so much easier out here with all this land and planning.
Distance to go: about 2h 20min YESSSSSSS!