Battleship Rock in the Painted Desert/petrified forest

All right. I never thought I'd be able to say I've driven through over 200 million years of history, but today, I say it to your face! Or at least I type it softly into my PDA and hope you read it.

Matt and I got out of our Wigwam and hit the national park hoping to 1: desecrate a national park and 2: steal a piece of wood turned to stone. Well we are failures. Wowed by the natural beauty of fossilized wood that over 200 million years, has absorbed all of the minerals around it and been through being underwater, then locked into rock, and eroded out by wind, these pieces of wood that are now hard as stone, display some of the most beautiful concentrations of color we have ever seen. Each one of these logs keeps on keepin' on, giving the Bee Gees song, 'Stayin Alive' new meaning to me. Honestly it is crazy to think that all of these thousands of logs could have grown as a lush forest in this now barren land. Or that some of these trees were washed down from another state and got caught up in lava, sediment or some other force of nature, locking it there until Mother Nature eroded the sand and silt around it, exposing these beautiful petrified stones for us to see. With so much being locked into the earth in this location, you would think, huh, there should be some old bones. You're right! Dinosaur bones and many artifacts from the Triassic period were found in this park, making the surrounding areas of the national park dinosaur statue crazy. That means in-between all the truck stops and RV Parks on the highways, you will see more than any normal human's share of not classy dinsaur replicas.

If you ever get out to Arizona, this is definitly a stop. as Matt and I started out in the Petrified forest, we drove north to the Painted desert and from 220 million years to just400 years ago, when Pueblo people inhabited the lush desert and water was plentiful to support human and animal life. There were a few really cool things to this end of the park. 1. Petroglyphs, 2. Pueblo ruins, 3. Colors of the painted desert.

Going to certain sites in the park, you're able to see amazing old writings of the Pueblo people. These writings look to us like rudimentary drawings from a kindergartener, but for the Pueblos, those pictures all explained stories and instructions to other peoples as to where to hunt for food, the 3 day walk to the lake, and the ubiquitous 'Jake was here'. Seriously, with my crazy telephoto lense, I was able to get a pretty close picture of some of these awesome petroglyphs and the images of people that the Pueblos chiseled into the rock showed me that the ladies were feminine and the men liked to see themselves as more than well-endowed. And they told the world.

The pueblos were just a neat look into history and to see the ruins made us feel small, insignificant, and very young. We also remembered how small people were back in the day.

And as for the painted desert, truly, this thing doesn't look real. I cannot believe that these colors occur naturally in this landscape and are there for us to take in. When you see beauty this stunning and vast, with colors this drenched, you think a master artisan put it together with some oils, not Mother Nature letting it just be in Arizona! This is one of the most stunning views of any land I've ever seen.

And that my friends is all I can type on my phone while getting carsick in the car. Headed to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

Petrified forest

Can you see the logs?!

The Teepees

This is at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The next few will be images too.

Interior of wigwam (read El Paso to AZ post first)

This is the inside of my wigwam. Do you see the angled walls? And the wood widdled furnishings? Bold choices abound in the southwest. :)

El Paso to Holbrook, AZ

That's right y'all. I've been in the south for less than 5 months and I'm usng y'all and bless his heart---a lot.

Anyhow we drove today from El Paso through New Mexico on the I-60 into AZ on the I-180. It was AMAZING! Although I thought I was gonna get Freddie Kruger on some ass when we left a hwy whose speed limit was 80 for a smaller one whose limit was 65 mph, I didn't. I was surprised too! Instead, we ended up driving past the VLA (Very Large Array) area, a place in the middle of NM where there sits a cluster of 25 high powered sattelites that shoot into the sky, hoping to get something back from other lifeforms. Tax dollars at work baby. Why doesn't the government just rent E.T. and get some skittles. We all know that's what aliens want. Anyhow, these massive disks, which for some god forsaken reason I forgot to take a pic of and upload--i blame it on a brain fart, been eating a lot of beans with my tex-mex food, were soooo impressive! They were enormous, and would move every 10 minutes or so, and the sound of these disks moving was so slight, you really had to pay attention. Besides that sound, the entire place was absolutely silent. I've never been anywhere that quiet before. America is astonishing. All right, it is except for the name VLA. Someone fell asleep at the wheel on that one.

After that little break out of the car, we kept driving and finally found some food in a town called, wait for it...Pie Town, USA! And what did we eat there? Well I dunno about you all, but I had some scrambled eggs. Good stuff on the, as they advertised, Great Divide. And we ate the peanut butter pie. So rich I almost went into a cardiac arrest, but since we were in the boonies, I didn't know where the nearest hospital was and wanted to get to AZ. So off we went!

Now this picture you see is of the Wigwam Hotel outside the Petrified Forest on old Route 66. If you're a fan of 'Cars' the animated movie, you'd totally fall in love with this place. I see the inspiration for Larry the cable guy's character and the hotel in the movie so clearly, I feel like they should pay me residuals. Anyhow, the huts look kinda scary when you roll up after 8 hours in the car. And the top of the doorframe to enter a wigwam is all of 6'3, so Matt is bending down, so he doesn't bludgen the noggin. Once you enter this luxurious place, you'll notice that none of the furnishings have been changed since 1940, when the hotel first opened. It is a sight! First thing I did when I walked into my teepeen I laughed out loud. There is huge kitch factor here so it makes it very adorable, and to be able to see the Rainbow and Petrified Forests this is totally cool.

I'll post a pic of the interior for you to see too.