Arizona's Badlands Were So Good

Day 97: Monday, October 11, 2010

Drive from Albuquerque, NM to Holbrook, AZ

With the Balloon Fiesta over, the KOA totally emptied out. Before heading out, we chatted with a few couples on their respective ways out, about the Fiesta, and other National Parks they have seen. There is something to be said for the camaraderie that develops between road-weary forever-curious travelers. We share beautiful places, incredible people, factoids and stories, laughs and headaches, advice and time. What more could you want?

One couple was from Edmundton, Alberta and, having heard we had traveled to BC and AB but had no sticker on our map, they gave us a Canadian sticker for our car. We had only met them the day before. But such is the kindness of strangers, upon which Ms. DuBois relented.

And then we hit the road, Jack, for Holbrook, Arizona, where we found a sweet man with crooked teeth selling petrified wood out of the back of his truck.

Day 98: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Petrified Forest National Park

As I was packing up the tent the next morning at the campground, I noticed an older woman walking in my direction, so I smiled and greeted her. She walked right on over and began telling me about this van with a map of the States and a funny backpack on its end. I burst out laughing, saying it was probably us. She squinted at me, looked closer at Matthew, and asked if we were traveling with a blond woman.

It turned out that we had met her before at a gas station just across the South Dakota border. She and her husband were on a different trip back then--almost four months ago. Funnily enough, at that same gas station was a man with a beautiful Harley in a trailer, that recognized us a few days later from that gas station as well. Hilarious. I guess something about us attracts attention. I wonder what that could be...

Our stint in the Petrified Forest National Park began at the Visitor's Center and Museum, where we learned about the area's long ago occupation by the phytosaurs, large crocodile-like dinosaurs. The Forest itself was formed when a forest millions of years ago collapsed and was washed into the neighboring river. Years of sediment and pressure preserved the trees by depriving them of oxygen, as various minerals permeated the wood in a process called premineralization, the process in which the organic tissue of a tree is replaced with silicate

and other minerals.

Walking around the Forest was simultaneously amazing and depressing. We were stunned by the variety of colors in the minerals of the pieces of petrified wood--pieces that were just laying out beside the path. We marveled at the aesthetic aspect of copper, carbon, iron oxides, and manganese. At the same time, however, we were disturbed by how few samples were available in the Park. Over the years, people have stolen pieces from the Park, dramatically depleting a national resource that can never be replaced.

While it is true that property owners in the surrounding area are allowed to sell any petrified wood unearthed on their land, far too much wood has been removed illegally. What a devastating decision.

All the same, it was awesome getting to see what used to lay under the ocean! The Painted Desert was very similar to the Badlands of South Dakota in a surprising way--all those layers of curvaceous rock streaked with iron oxides rippling under the hot sun. Gorgeous.