Painted Desert

Posted on June 9, 2011June 9, 2011 by Dusty Roads

The transition from Petrified Forest to Painted Desert was almost seamless. One minute the tour CD was talking about Petrified Logs and fossils and the next the Painted Desert. There was a brief transitional tract when we crossed the railroads tracks that was all about Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls. I have never seen so many railroads before either. I think it was Joe (Native American Journey’s again) who told us the trains run at 15 minute intervals. The trains are very long, most with flat cars loaded with containers either bound for port on the west coast or coming in to the area with goods. The tracks we passed on the border of the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert are the tracks of the Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe.

Near the railroad tracks we crossed an old Highway. Maybe you’ve heard of it, RT 66. The same RT 66 where we stopped for Ice Cream with Joe the Guide from Native American Journey’s. Wow, that tour and guide seems to have influenced our whole trip! Anyway, Rt 66 is 2200 miles long but Petrified Forest National Park is the only park in the National Park System that contains a segment of this iconic road. A road trip exploring the remnants of this famous highway might be an interesting vacation trip.

By now we were in the Painted Desert. This is the northern end of the Petrified Forest National Park. You can see the massive erosion that has sculpted and created amazing formations of buttes, mesa, hoodoos, and bluffs all in lovely pastels of red, green, purple, blue and other combinations. This type of erosion creates landscapes that are collectively called “Badlands”.

There are a series of well maintained pull offs where you can explore and take pictures. The colors are most intense in the early morning or late afternoon as the mid-day sun tends to make them look washed out. We had the opposite problem since shifting cloud cover was casting dark shadows over much of the landscape.

The pull off points have names like Lacy Point, Whipple Point, Nizhoni Point, Pintado Point, Chinde Point and Kachina Point.

Lacy and Whipple Points are named for individuals that influenced the park. Nizhoni Point is the Apache word for beautiful. Certainly fitting as the park is very beautiful.

Pintadao Point is one of the most famous views in the park. Pintado is Spanish for painted. You can see the highest point in the park , Pilot Rock from this location.

Chinde Point is a Navaho term. It means evil spirit or ghost. It is also famous for a nearly complete fossil found in 1985. “Gerty” was a small meat-eating dino that roamed the area about 200 million years ago.

Kachina Point is the location for the Painted Desert Inn. As it was starting to get late, we simply drove past the Inn but we did stop at the Visitor Center at the Northern End of the park. The rain caught us again so we headed back to RT 40 for the long drive back to Sedona. We arrived in Winslow too late to visit Meteor Crater this trip but if we were able to do everything in one trip we’d have no reason to come back.

We crossed in and out of rain showers and some pretty heavy downpours followed by patches of sun as we headed west toward Sedona.

I don’t think I’ve visited anyplace where I can say that I’ve seen everything I wanted to see. I have a bucket list for a return trip everywhere I’ve been. Look at the Sedona Area/ Northern Arizona. It’s only the upper part of the state and I’ve made 2 visits but I still have a long list of places to see, things to do and of photographs I want to take and that’s not even taking into consideration everything there is to do south of Phoenix!

I’m pretty sure I’ll be back again, probably not for a couple of years. Other locations and trips are calling me but sooner or later I will return.

Petrified Forest

Posted on June 8, 2011June 8, 2011 by Dusty Roads

Ahh the Petrified Forest, who hasn’t heard of the place where trees have turned to stone? It was quite a ride from the Oak Creek Canyon Overlook. We headed north to RT 40 and east toward Winslow. Along the way we passed Meteor Crater. I’ve been there but to my surprise Sandy said skip it. She said if we had time after the went to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert we could stop on our way back.

I was surprised how much longer it was after passing Meteor Crater. It was past lunch time so we stopped at a Denny’s for a quick lunch. We had fish! In the middle of a desert we ordered fish! It was really good. Ironic isn’t it?

Back on the road we finally began to see signs for the Petrified Forest. There were lots of places willing to sell us a bit of the petrified wood too. It’s illegal to take any of the petrified trees or bits of wood from the National Park but not all of the Petrified Forest is in the confines of the park so there’s ample opportunity to get a sample. We finally spotted the Visitor Center where I wanted to stop anyway to collect my National Parks Stamp.

We got some good rangers and volunteers again. We explored the exhibit of dino remains that were on exhibit and heard stories about the petrified wood and how it’s so hard that only diamonds are used to cut and polish the “gems”.

We bought a CD that is a ” Driving CD” audio tour. It included a rough map to help us see where we were in relation to what we were seeing.

The whole tour is about an hour a and a half if you drive straight through. We didn’t plan to linger too much but we weren’t going to rush through either. We were playing cat and mouse with the weather again.

Little rain storms kept cropping up all over. It would rain, kind of hard at times but then it was over and the sun was back out just as fast. We could look out over the landscape and see these little pockets of rain.

The tour started right at the Visitor Center called Rainbow Forest Museum. In addition to the fossils on display here there is a short trail that winds through a section of the Petrified Forest. It contains some of the most massive logs in the forest including the big one named “Old Faithful”.

The road led us into a series of mesas called Flattops.

It is in this area that archeologists have found evidence of the Paleo Peoples who lived in the area.

They were hunters and gatherers so most of the remains are artifacts such as tools and weapons. They can track the development of trade through the years as their artifacts changed over time.

Jasper Forest has a large deposit of red hued petrified forest. The logs here were buried in mud so the minerals from that mud settled in the wood and created the red color. Now the bluff is eroding and the logs are being revealed.

One of my favorite stops was Agate Bridge, a natural bridge of a petrified log. The railroads shored it up with concrete so it stands today. I am going to share a story but if you go I am sure a guide will tell it better than I can. The story is that 2 cowboys were playing poker and one bet the other that he and his horse couldn’t ride across the Agate Bridge. If the Cowboy made it he would win a $20.00 gold piece and bragging rights. If he lost, the challenging cowboy would get the dead man’s saddle and boots. Well the horse was surefooted and the cowboy was a good rider and they made it across safely. Anyway, you won’t catch me on that bridge.

The Blue Mesa was a great spot! The views here were of a striated multicolored landscape. Blue Mesa has also been called the Purple Forest because of the purple or lavender color of the crystals in the petrified wood here. There’s a 1 mile round trip hike that I would love to take if we had more time. The area we are in is also referred to as the badlands, just like the Badlands we visited in South Dakota.

The teepees came up quickly and there was no mistaking them! They are really memorable. They look just like the teepee of the plains indians. There is little plant life or vegetation here . The landscape is so surreal it’s almost like stepping onto another planet.

Our tour led us to Newspaper Rock. It took some looking but I finally spotted at least some of the Petroglyphs this stop is named for. The Petroglyphs are scratched into the surface of the rock. It removed the dark stains on the rocks known as Desert Varnish. Joe (From Native American Journey’s) had mentioned it to us on that tour. Apparently scientists still aren’t in agreement on exactly what the Desert Varnish is but it didn’t stop the ancient people from using it as a black board for their art.

We saw the railroad tracks and the river lined with Cottonwood Trees. Our next stop was at Puerco Pueblo. As we listened to the tour we pulled into the parking area. It sounded like an abandoned pueblo similar to what we saw a Tusigoot. In the interest of time we chose to move on. We wanted to be sure we had time to see the Painted Desert.

More Grand Canyon

Posted on May 25, 2011May 25, 2011 by Dusty Roads

There is way too much to show and tell about the Grand Canyon for one post. So let me try to fill in some of what I skipped yesterday.

At our first stop we could see the Colorado River winding its way through the canyon floor.

Our guide pointed out the rapids. They didn’t look like much from where we were standing but he said they are CLASS 10! He went on to tell us that the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon is the only place where rapids are rated on a scale of 1-10. Everywhere else the maximum rapid is 5. He said several other rapids in the canyon are rated class 8. WOW! Anyone up for a white water rafting trip?

This is a marker from the last survey of the Grand Canyon.

It was done with volunteers and the assistance of the Boston Museum of Science and the National Geographic Society.

With Sandy waving in the foreground, you can get some perspective of the hugeness of the Canyon. Just awe-inspiring! This was also the stop where the biologist was tracking the Condors.

Railings and walls are there to keep us safe. Even so, we saw a mother take her young son over the fence and right up to the rim. Crazy!

Once back at the train we climbed up to the Visitor Center so I could secure my National Park Stamp. There were a couple of pieces of petrified wood on display. I am hoping we’ll have time to get to the petrified forest this trip. I missed it last time.

While there we walked over to El Tovar. The Hotel is the premier lodging in the Grand Canyon National Park. It first opened it’s doors on 1905. It was most recently renovated in 2005.

We also stopped by Hopi House which is another National Historical building. It was created to allow Native Americans to sell their authentic Native American crafts.

Then it was time to climb back down to the depot.

We’ve stretched our visit long enough for this time. We’ll be back in the morning to go into the Canyon so it’s time to load onto the train for the return trip.

It’s about 3:15 so the railroad serves a snack buffet to First Class and Dome car passengers on the return trip too. This time it’s veggies and dip and cheese and crackers. A nice touch and certainly appreciated.

Just outside of Williams the train slowed to a stop. We spotted the Cowboys galloping along side only now they were bandits here to rob the train! All in fun we handed over change and dollar bills. I presume it is their “tip” for the show this morning.

Little Colorado, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest

Posted on February 23, 2011February 23, 2011 by Dusty Roads

Rethinking Monument Valley Scenic Drive

I know that in yesterday’s post I listed a bunch of options but I was poking around online trying to get more information about the Painted Desert and ran across this link http://www.arizona-leisure.com/painted-desert.html There’s a video on the bottom and it really makes me want to take that long drive to Monument Valley. Apparently you will pass through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest on the way to Monument Valley.

I continued my search and found information on the Little Colorado. I drove by this on my last visit but didn’t stop. Now I’d like to see how we might be able to fit in a visit to this canyon as it was quite impressive too.

http://www.navajonationparks.org/htm/littlecolorado.htm

According to these links Cameron seems to be a “hub” for both the Painted Desert and The Little Colorado and Cameron is on the way to Monument Valley.

Once again the only drawback is the length of the drive but if Sandy is up for it, I think I am too. If it ends up taking too long with all the stops for sight-seeing we can always turn around.

I’ll see what my co-explorer has to say. At least we can change our minds since there wouldn’t be any tour guide or dinner appointment to worry about.

Bucket List, Sedona~ ”The Possibles”

Posted on February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 by Dusty Roads

Grand Canyon

Then we have a list of “possibles”. If yesterday’s list was the main course, then this is a list of “side dishes”.

Now understand that this list is one I have put together from reading brochures, searching the internet and my own past visit. This is very much open to change and I know we won’t have the time to do everything. If compared to cruising, yesterday was the cruise and these are “excursions” to pick from.