Day 3: Albuquerque, Lava, Lizards, and Petrified Forest

We got a fairly early start, 9am or thereabouts, and apart from leaving a bag of dirty clothes somewhere in Albuquerque it was fine trip along I-40 west to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Only a couple of stops along the way, one of which was at a slab of asphalt inappropriately named 'scenic turnout' right next to the expressway some 40 miles out of Albuquerque on I-40. It did however give me a chance to get a whiff of the New Mexico air - surprisingly it was exotic with a slightly spicy scent - and a view of the circa 1706 'San Jose de la Laguna' mission, pictured here. Picturesque.

Next, we had the opportunity for Dad to be completely wrong. We were wending our way through a valley between some relatively impressive mountains, and ran across some billboards hawking views of volcano 'something or other'. I'd just made a statement that this area was way not volcanic, when we passed through what were unmistakably fields of lava. I was stunned. The black, elephant-skinned flows looked like they were put down last week, but we found out they were some 3,000 years old. The area is just east of Grants, NM of which Wikepedia has an amusing if less than flattering description. In fact, Google has satellite imagery that clearly shows the black flows.

We found out more about the flows at the Grants' New Mexico visitor center where we took a photo-op (you can see older lava flows behind us and mountains in the distance), and had a look at the local wildlife. This was actually a huge 30-foot lizard, but I think the heat shrank it a bit. Not.

We ate in Gallup, which was a lot smaller than expected, where we saw some beautiful red sandstone bluffs.

Finally, around noon on Tuesday, we reached our very first sightseeing destination.




Petrified forest and Painted desert are both in the same National Park, and the park employees are quite friendly. It's a long strip of mostly North-South land in the middle of otherwise barren scrub-land. I didn't have any preconceptions of what to expect, and was still frankly amazed. The painted desert is a relatively small area that you hit first, and the clays that formed layers in the desert, at some time when the area was more hospitable, contain different minerals hence the different colors. When the land was worn away by wind and rain, it left behind mounds of colored dirt with bands of color.
In some areas, you round a bend and enter a completely alien terrain like the 'Teepee's. To give you some perspective, the van is parked to the right. I believe it was manganese that give these rocks the grayish-white cast.



Finally, we hit the petrified forest. I'd never realized how many of them there were. Even after a significant portion of them had been carted away soon after they were discovered, the valley floor is littered with them in the 'Jasper forest'. I know it is hard to see, but all those rocks below are sections of petrified logs. This was just one small section. Depending on the minerals that replaced the log's organic matter, they have different colors. Most are beautiful agate; here is just one sample:







Just to give you an idea of the size of many of the logs, Corey is sitting on this one:

These logs are just appearing as softer land around them is worn away. Most frequently, the logs seem to be broken into sections.







There are amazing petroglyphs (pictures etched into dark portions of rocks) in various spots in the park. They are somewhere between 650 and 2000 years old, and were placed there by various native peoples who lived here. Experts suspect they were placed for religious reasons, and there are several that are used as a solar calendar -- they are illuminated at the solstices and equinoxes.

There must have been more rain at one time, and the dry rivers with water, because I cannot imagine growing corn, squash etc in this dry, dry climate. As you can see, the main river, the Puerco, has no water at all.

(In the background is a train. We passed, and then were passed by (during our stops) a single train most of the day. We can't be sure this is the same train, as it seems to have added engines and cars, but we grew quite fond of it, and waved each time we saw it.)

We did get to see more mobile wildlife, which promptly tried to run under our wheels. This pronghorn was particularly stupid.


Well, we spent so much time in the park (until about 5pm) that we didn't have time to see Meteor Crater. It was pitch dark by the time we got there. Next trip...

By the way, high desert apparently means the land is way up in the air. On our way to Flagstaff, we were constantly going up (rather irritating really). By the time we reached the city we'd gained several thousand feet in altitude, finally reaching some 7000 feet.

Completely bushed, we turned north at Williams, AZ and spent another hour reaching the Grand Canyon. The one time I got out to stretch my legs, the stars were brilliant, and I think that both Jupiter and Saturn were in the sky. We reached the Grand Canyon about 1am body time (Chicago time), but because this part of AZ doesn't observe daylight savings time, it was only 10pm locally. Everybody crashed, without even thinking about the blog. So I'm a day behind on the blog.

Today, we covered a lot of area, and the canyon is ... awesome ... however it's late again, and tomorrow's another day. Gnight all.