Epically overdue...
As I sit on our couch, wind howling outside, temps in the 40's, hacking and trying to cough up my lungs (I swear) from whatever virus has rooted itself firmly in the depths, it seems as good a time as any to return to the desert, longing for warmer days that have now left us. I left you in Tucson with giant cacti.
From there we headed pretty much diagonally to the northeast corner of Arizona. Sadly, our drive was at night time and we missed our opportunity to get a good pic in front of Biosphere, think early 90's failed experiment, followed by a really bad Pauly Shore film, but it would have been a fun photo. Our night time stop after leaving Tucson also found us trying something new, boondocking in a Walmart parking lot. Unless local ordinances prevail, Walmarts are welcoming of RV'ers spending a night in their lot at no charge. It's frowned on to fully unpack and stay for days, however most RV'ers spend a quick night and usually drop in to their stores to provision, so they make money out of it, everybody wins. Aside from the hooligans who decided to booze it up in their car and blast their tunes at some late hour, it was an uneventful, free night's sleep on a concrete pad.
Morning comes early when you're camped on a busy highway, so up we got and down the road we went. Our next stop, on our way to Canyon de Chelly, was the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert area. If you ever find yourself traveling east or west on I-40, this is a very easy park to get to. It's set up so you can drive from north to south or vice versa and then circle back to the interstate. I think it would probably only be a 2-3 hour detour to see some pretty cool stuff and get back on the road easily.
Sidebar: If you ever find your self driving near Globe or Showlow, take Highway 60 through the Salt River Canyon. Super pretty views and very windy road, that brings you to the canyon floor before heading up again.
Anyway, back to the Pertirfied National Forest..the name pretty much says it all, there are lots of petrified logs in this area, but also some really pretty scenery also. The park actually encompasses about 230 square miles, including desert scrubland and some super colourful hills, in the Painted Desert in particular. The trees that are fossilized are estimated to have lived about 225 million years ago. About 60 millions years ago, tectonic forces helped to push the Colorado Plateau upward, increasing erosion and uncovering some unreal fossils. In addition to the logs, this area is super rich in fossils of early dinosaurs, reptiles, amphibians and more, making it a very popular place for paleontologists.
First I give you, the Painted Hills and other scenery:
And now, logs, lots of logs. Pro tip: bring a bottle of water with you and sprinkle it on the logs, it will make the colours far more vibrant. Also, removing any fossils, no matter how small, is strictly prohibited in this park. Once you take them all, there's none left for the rest of us to enjoy, so just follow the rules, ok? The first pic is of one on display at the visitors center, an example of what the logs can look like once they've been polished and cleaned up. The rest of the pics are logs laying as nature placed them. The almost perfectly symmetrical breaks in the logs are natural, despite looking man-made. Apparently, time and weight will do that to the logs.
From there we headed pretty much diagonally to the northeast corner of Arizona. Sadly, our drive was at night time and we missed our opportunity to get a good pic in front of Biosphere, think early 90's failed experiment, followed by a really bad Pauly Shore film, but it would have been a fun photo. Our night time stop after leaving Tucson also found us trying something new, boondocking in a Walmart parking lot. Unless local ordinances prevail, Walmarts are welcoming of RV'ers spending a night in their lot at no charge. It's frowned on to fully unpack and stay for days, however most RV'ers spend a quick night and usually drop in to their stores to provision, so they make money out of it, everybody wins. Aside from the hooligans who decided to booze it up in their car and blast their tunes at some late hour, it was an uneventful, free night's sleep on a concrete pad.
Morning comes early when you're camped on a busy highway, so up we got and down the road we went. Our next stop, on our way to Canyon de Chelly, was the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert area. If you ever find yourself traveling east or west on I-40, this is a very easy park to get to. It's set up so you can drive from north to south or vice versa and then circle back to the interstate. I think it would probably only be a 2-3 hour detour to see some pretty cool stuff and get back on the road easily.
Sidebar: If you ever find your self driving near Globe or Showlow, take Highway 60 through the Salt River Canyon. Super pretty views and very windy road, that brings you to the canyon floor before heading up again.
Anyway, back to the Pertirfied National Forest..the name pretty much says it all, there are lots of petrified logs in this area, but also some really pretty scenery also. The park actually encompasses about 230 square miles, including desert scrubland and some super colourful hills, in the Painted Desert in particular. The trees that are fossilized are estimated to have lived about 225 million years ago. About 60 millions years ago, tectonic forces helped to push the Colorado Plateau upward, increasing erosion and uncovering some unreal fossils. In addition to the logs, this area is super rich in fossils of early dinosaurs, reptiles, amphibians and more, making it a very popular place for paleontologists.
First I give you, the Painted Hills and other scenery:
And now, logs, lots of logs. Pro tip: bring a bottle of water with you and sprinkle it on the logs, it will make the colours far more vibrant. Also, removing any fossils, no matter how small, is strictly prohibited in this park. Once you take them all, there's none left for the rest of us to enjoy, so just follow the rules, ok? The first pic is of one on display at the visitors center, an example of what the logs can look like once they've been polished and cleaned up. The rest of the pics are logs laying as nature placed them. The almost perfectly symmetrical breaks in the logs are natural, despite looking man-made. Apparently, time and weight will do that to the logs.
Comments
Post a Comment