Painted Desert and Petrified Forest are Awesome

28 Mar 2013

THIS A PANORAMA - PLEASE USE YOUR BOTTOM SCROLL BAR (GO RIGHT) TO SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE. YOU CAN ALSO CHANGE THE "VIEW" TO LESS THAN 100% IF DESIRED

 
When you first get here it’s easy to get a little snap happy. Clickin’ away with abandon – after all it’s only electrons and memory space. That is until you decide to go through them to separate the wheat from the chaff so you can share the better ones. Never mind the part where you’re tripping over your own feet as you take in the spectacular sights, rushing to whip off another great (maybe) photo. And the first pieces of petrified wood – gotta shoot all the angles!

Didn’t realize there are fields of the stuff!

Which may explain the 360 photos of the place I waded through for this entry.

Painted desert colours…

are complimented by some interesting man made sights:

Painted Desert Inn. Preserved but no longer functional

Less preserved (the car). Human still somewhat functional

Now you know everything.

In it's better days this was a pueblo

In earlier times, perhaps when water was more readily available, the Puebloan People built in this area – leaving around 1380 A.D.

The"Rio Puerco" is now a sandy wash.

They also liked to doodle on the rocks.

I said "Ibis and frog" I was right, I was right, I was right, I was right, OW!

On the 28 mile trip from park entry to exit there are just two food vendors so we packed a lunch. Decided this was the perfect view (through the windshield) and parked here. Got all excited again about petrified wood until we walked down the Blue Mesa Trail. Fortunately the Blue Mesa Trail is steep enough to induce deep breathing so we calmed right down. Speechless in fact. No breath. Got over it and resumed jabbering and clicking:

It's a rock!

Funny human gasping for breathe looking cool (right?)

The striations are incredible.

Moved on to the “Agate Bridge” attraction – a very long (135’) and complete petrified log supported by concrete back in the early 1900’s. Who knew there were lots more in the Long Logs section further along?  Anyway – here it is…

Oh sure - we know all about Triassic

Don’t remember where we saw these log chunks but based on the colour and initial feel you would swear they were wood, not 200 million year old rocks. Easy to check with your foot if you like.

The logs come in a broad spectrum of colours with centres of red, brown, purple and more and exteriors that include grays, oranges, reds and browns. Many look incredibly real with bark textures and even internal rings.

These were BIG trees

Remember the excitement about the big Agate Bridge log? Check out these big boys –

 

The call this one "Old Faithful" Biggest in the Park

While out on the Long Log Trail we also took the Agate House Trail (this was the completer for us – we have walked all of the official trails). Agate House was a reconstruction using original petrified log chunks and displayed a quiet beauty for such a simple structure. The human included is neither quiet nor beautiful.

End of the day - heading out at 5:30 p.m.

When I say we “did” all the trails I didn’t mean - we won't come back. This place is worth another look.

And the pictures? They do not do the place justice. You have to see it to properly appreciate it.

Just put it on the Bucket List and get on with it. No – don’t click the red X yet – go write it down – it’s worth it.

No - really!

 

I’m watching…