Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

Thea and Claire, this is for you. Do you see the thing that looks like a fallen down tree in the picture. It is really a rock. What happened is this. Millions of years ago there was a tropical forest (yes, around the equator) with lots of trees and animals in it. When trees died and fell down, they were often buried in mud and silt because the land flooded so often. So the trees did not rot like normal. Instead they got filled with water containing minerals. Then the continental shift occurred which moved that land from the equator up to Arizona. And somewhere in there the water evaporated leaving only the minerals in the shape of the tree. For years and years they were still buried in rock from the mud and silt but eventually the wind eroded that softer rock and the petrified trees are just lying around waiting for us to look at them. Pretty cool, huh? I have pieces of petrified wood for all grandchildren except Caeli. Now girls, explain this to your sisters. Get your dads and moms to help.


The pictures at the right are pictures of petrified trees. Some are in the museum and some are outside lying on the ground. The rocks are all different colors based on the color of the minerals. We have a paper telling which colors from which minerals. It was odd. We walked two trails which were a couple of miles apart - one has mostly red petrified wood and the other has mostly white.








We were so confused about where and what the Painted Desert is. It is any desert land that is colorful. It runs all the way from the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest. The picture at the left is a view called the Teepees and it shows the colors in the painted desert. They are lovely pastels.

At the last place we stopped there were petroglyphs in the rocks just below us. According to the sign there were some 650 in the rocks. We tried to find them and think we saw a few. But it was getting dark by then and we were not sure.

And one final picture for you. Not a tree this time:



The park was closing and there are about 6 overlooks that we missed because we started out late. So tomorrow back to Petrified Forest to pick those up and then on to Mesa Verde. We'll cross into New Mexico and turn north to Colorado. We lose an hour in that traveling so wish us luck at getting back on schedule. We miss you all but are kind of glad you are not here. I think after one hike through the red part of the petrified forest, you would not have seen the need to hike through the white petrified forest.