Albuquerque, NM to Winslow, AZ

Day 10: Thu 31 Jul: I'm writing from a Days Inn in Winslow, Arizona.

I left Stu and Mark's this morning at around 10:30am. My main goal today was to see Petrified Forest National Park. While leaving Albuquerque on I-40W, I saw signs for Petroglyph National Monument, so I made a short detour.

As always, the park rangers and volunteers were incredibly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable.

I did the Boca Negra Canyon section.

The petroglyphs were pretty neat, although after a while it was `seen one, seen them all'. Their specific history is that they are made on basalt, which darkens as it weathers (oxidizes). Centuries ago the ancestors of the current pueblo peoples picked or chipped the weathering away and so exposed lighter basalt. The ages range widely. Some are very old (500 CE); some date to the height of the pueblo era (1200 to 1400 CE); some to Spanish shepherds (Catholic crosses); and some very recent (graffiti).

The geology of this region is unlike anything in the East. 150,000 years ago the Albuquerque volcanoes were active, and overlaid the area with lava (basalt). As the basaltic caprock eroded away, it created canyons exposing the river deposits undreneath. This particular canyon is strewn with basalt boulders falling down a hillside to the sandy low ground.

Then it was back on the road. Western I-40 has some great volcanic terrain. Lava everywhere. I didn't have time to get to El Malpais National Monument, but it would be worth a trip.

Finally I got to Petrified Forest National Park. All I can say is Wow. I went from north to south. I first saw incredible vistas of the Painted Desert. Incredibly colorful badlands. It's even a wilderness area, so you can get a permit for overnight camping, which would be intense. Definitely something to consider, if you're up for some high altitude desert (a gallon of water a day, at least) backpacking.

Further along the road I saw another pueblo (as cool as they are, I think I've finally seen enough of them), more petroglyphs, and finally some petrified wood.

The petrified wood is buried in specific layers, which, as they erode out, exposes the logs. As the hillsides erode further, the logs fall down the hillside. It's very cool looking.

The best part, for me, was the Blue Mesa side road, and hiking trail. The trail takes you down into the badlands, where you can see it all up close. It was like being on the moon. Since the ground is all clay (from volcanic ashfall), there is practically no vegetation. And since I was down in a valley, there was no wind. No birdsong. Absolute and utter quiet. Stunning colors (manganese gives it the purple color), and sections of petrified logs strewn about.

It was about a mile hike, and although it was pretty level at the bottom, the hike int and out of the canyon showed that I'm still not acclimated to being a mile above sea level. It wasn't as bad as the three mile hike on the top of Sandia Mountain yesterday, though.

There's more (specifically, Crystal Forest, where most of the logs are), and lots more photographs.

I finally left the park at what I thought was closing (7pm), but I had forgotten that Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time and so was effectively on Pacific Daylight Time. So it was only 6pm, which gave me more time to make it to Flagstaff or Sedona for the night.

While I was heading to Flagstaff I passed many trains on the Santa Fe line, each of them miles long, where every railcar held two containers, double-decker style. That's an immense amount of shipping.

Past Winslow, I saw sign for Meteor Crater, which I definitely don't want to miss. Since it was already too late to see it, I decided to go back to Winslow to spend the night so I can catch it first thing in the morning. Thus, this Days Inn.

Tomorrow, the crater, and then to Idyllwild, California.