Arizona is a state with some simply unbelievable natural wonders. I had heard a couple of residents explain this to me years back, saying that the state has everything but an ocean. While the Grand Canyon is obviously the most famous, it is by no means the only natural wonder in the state. My son and I were amazed simply by being in the southwestern desert, particularly by the saguaro cactus trees all over the place. Yet, just a couple of hours further north and up at much high elevations, among the mountains, there were pine forests and much more greenery (at least in the summer). During the winter, Flagstaff gets pounded by snow! Indeed, Arizona seems to have just about every natural wonder available to it except for an ocean or a sea, really.
In the process of doing research on the internet for this trip, I kept finding some more amazing places that we could potentially explore, even while knowing that our time out there was going to be quite short. Obviously, we would not be able to explore everything in Arizona, and had to be a bit selective.
That said, when I found out about the Petrified Forest, this really stood out as something that we should see. My son has taken in interest in geology, and can identify rocks that he sees better than me. This is an interest and ability of his that I felt should be encouraged, and so I mentioned the petrified wood of Arizona to him, and said that there was a park where much of this was gathered. His eyes widened, and he said that this was a place we should definitely go visit.
And so, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert became one of the priorities for the trip, just like that.
My son kept talking about it, and said that he hoped that he could get a piece or so. He even talked about getting a chainsaw or a regular saw to cut off a piece, and I assured him that this would not be possible, and was illegal. However, I assured him that there were surely souvenir shops which sold pieces of petrified wood, and that I would try to get him a nice piece of his choosing, so long as it was not outrageously expensive.
It became one of the things that he continually talked about before the trip, and he repeatedly mentioned his hopes that he could get a really cool piece.
The first part of the trip was enjoyable, but very, very busy. We did one hundred things, and were running around all over the place, hardly able to catch our breath. I already mentioned how impressed he was with Tombstone, and he felt it was the highlight of the trip. But with the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest still yet to come, I hoped to keep his interest up.
The excitement to visit the place built up as it came closer, and he called it the "Terrified Forest" at one point, which I thought was a cute mistake. He has been making less and less of those mistakes lately, although admittedly, I still enjoy them when he makes them. He made one earlier this year, but what it was escapes me. But he used to have the typical, little kid inability to correctly say spaghetti, instead referring to it as Pasgeti.
We were driving up, and again, I was amazed by how cool it was. Still not my expectations for the state of Arizona, which I has thought would be more or less scorching all summer long, except maybe by the mountains of Flagstaff. But most of the days were surprisingly cool. In fact, it was surprisingly cool everywhere that we went except for the areas in and around Phoenix. As we approached Holbrook, the town where the Petrified Forest is located, there were thunderstorms, and this did not seem to bode well at all. I sighed, but we were here and only had this last full day out west. This would have to be the day.
Luckily, the thunderstorms subsided (at least for a while, although they resumed again on the long drive back to Flagstaff and eventually Phoenix), so we were able to enjoy the day. Even more, the rainfall had made the petrified wood wet, which length them a shiny, polished look. Suddenly, I was appreciative of the fact that it had indeed rained, something that I was cursing under my breath at the beginning of the visit. This actually was adding something to our visit, not subtracting from it!
This park has some incredibly interesting places and things to visit, from the petrified wood itself, to the small, multicolored hills known as the "Painted Desert" (the name that the natives gave to them), and even ancient petroglyphs.
It was amazing! Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like this before.
Look closely at the pictures. At first glance, it might appear like just normal logs, or wood. Nothing particularly special, right? But take another look, and notice that all of this, all of what you are seeing, is petrified. It's rock. These are crystals and minerals, although they have retained the appearance of the original wood. Often times, the crystals are multicolored, which makes this look really spectacular, particularly when wet, and get that shiny glean to them. I was not exactly pleased when it started raining (fairly heavily) as we arrived at the Petrified Forest, although now, looking back, this probably enhanced the trip quite a bit, giving the petrified wood a polished look that it might not otherwise have had.
What officially was considered the Painted Desert was, in my opinion, not quite as spectacular as further back, where there were other hills that had seemed even more colorful, closer to the other entrance to the park. Still, it was all amazing, and something to see! Not for the first time, I mentioned to my son how this was most definitely not New Jersey!
There was a bridge essentially from a fallen piece of petrified wood that had not fallen apart, but stayed there. What an amazing sight! Everywhere you looked, there were pieces of petrified wood or painted desert, and the landscape around it was barren, much like you picture the old west being.
However, by maybe an hour, and certainly by two hours, in, my son was getting tired. When we would pull over to check out this or that, he began to choose to stay in the car more and more, and was beginning to seem disinterested. We had stopped at a gift shop, called Geronimo, along the way, where they had a small exhibit of huge pieces of petrified wood outside, including what they claimed to be the biggest actual petrified tree in the world. Indeed, it was huge, although one of the women park rangers said that there was at least one tree bigger than that at the actual park itself.
They had cactus plants prominently displayed all over the place, including in makeshift petrified wood pots (see pictures). They had some beautiful pieces of petrified wood, including whole logs, and even what looked like a throne made from the stuff. Indeed, they had some incredible things both inside of the store and outside, including some teepees outside. It was a nice spot, and my son was really excited.
However, it seemed like his excitement from that place actually accelerated his sense of being burned out later on, at the park itself. He was excited at first, but then grew tired, and began to be less interested in seeing more petrified wood. He was complaining about not even being able to take a tiny piece home with him, even though by that time, I had gotten him four pieces, including one fairly sizable piece of petrified wood. I began to regret stopping at that tourist shop before our visit, and not afterwards.
Still, what is done is done. And so, without further ado, here are the pictures from our visit of the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert!
No comments:
Post a Comment