Day 6 (January 7th) Santa Fe through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest to Flagstaff
Our original plan had been to head north up into Southern Colorado and Utah after a rest in Santa Fe. Road fatigue and a building excitement to surf lead us to reroute in a more direct manner. The new plan was to head straight to Flagstaff stopping enroute in the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. It's a decision neither of us regretted once we got out of the car and started the walk along the ridge overlooking the painted desert.
On the road again:
We got to the visitor's center at 3:30pm knowing the park was closing at 5pm, and daylight was quickly fading. We needed professional advice to help us prioritize our very limited time. The young guy working there had thin, straight hair plastered straight down all around his skull as if it sprouted out of the crown of his head and cascaded down like waterfalls. Very friendly and helpful he pointed us towards a mile roundtrip hike to see the painted desert and, if we hustled, to the Crystal Forest on the southern end of Petrified Forest National Park.
We walked from Tawa to Kachina Point which is high along a ridge overlooking the painted desert.
We took a moment at Kachina Point then turned to get back to the car as quickly as possible. We started jogging and I felt immediately winded. I am not in bad shape, I think. At least not so bad that I would start huffing after a light jog for five minutes. Just doing a little high-altitude training.
Back in the car, the drive through the park was just as interesting and alien-landscapish.
We got to the Crystal Forest right before the sun started to set. For those of you who don't know, petrified wood is wood thath as turned to stone. Sci-fi sounding, right? The National Park Service brochure they hand out at the visitor center explains it this way:
"This high, dry grassland was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall, stately conifer trees grew along the banks....The trees, Araucarioylon, Woodworthia, Schilderia, and others, fell, and swollen streams washed them into adjacent floodplains. A mix of silt, mud, and volcanic ash bured the logs. this sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood."
Hey, Stephen, stonified wood is right behind ya!
Closer;
Even closer:
Another field of petrified wood:
The day was overcast all day, good conditions for digital photography. Just as the day was ending the sun peeked out below the cloud cover, appearing in time to set.
Driving out of the park we hit a patch of recently paved road. There was no one else out on those roads for miles, as far as we could tell. Glassy, downhill asphalt and uncrowded conditions! Stephen pulled out his skateboard and bombed the hill into the sunset as I drove ahead of him at 15mph. Jealous jealous. Fun times.
Flagstaff, Arizona. This town smelled of burning wood. A sweet, smokey smell. Mesquite? It permeated the downtown in a pleasant way. We parked outside the hotel a few miles from the downtown area and walked. A shortcut away from the highway brought us down a back street with some interesting houses. One looked like it was styled after shipping containers. We walked over to a restaurant that got really good reviews on Yelp! but it turned out to be a bit too pricey for us. So we had sushi instead. Yum.
On the road again:
We got to the visitor's center at 3:30pm knowing the park was closing at 5pm, and daylight was quickly fading. We needed professional advice to help us prioritize our very limited time. The young guy working there had thin, straight hair plastered straight down all around his skull as if it sprouted out of the crown of his head and cascaded down like waterfalls. Very friendly and helpful he pointed us towards a mile roundtrip hike to see the painted desert and, if we hustled, to the Crystal Forest on the southern end of Petrified Forest National Park.
We walked from Tawa to Kachina Point which is high along a ridge overlooking the painted desert.
We took a moment at Kachina Point then turned to get back to the car as quickly as possible. We started jogging and I felt immediately winded. I am not in bad shape, I think. At least not so bad that I would start huffing after a light jog for five minutes. Just doing a little high-altitude training.
Back in the car, the drive through the park was just as interesting and alien-landscapish.
We got to the Crystal Forest right before the sun started to set. For those of you who don't know, petrified wood is wood thath as turned to stone. Sci-fi sounding, right? The National Park Service brochure they hand out at the visitor center explains it this way:
"This high, dry grassland was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall, stately conifer trees grew along the banks....The trees, Araucarioylon, Woodworthia, Schilderia, and others, fell, and swollen streams washed them into adjacent floodplains. A mix of silt, mud, and volcanic ash bured the logs. this sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood."
Hey, Stephen, stonified wood is right behind ya!
Closer;
Even closer:
Another field of petrified wood:
The day was overcast all day, good conditions for digital photography. Just as the day was ending the sun peeked out below the cloud cover, appearing in time to set.
Driving out of the park we hit a patch of recently paved road. There was no one else out on those roads for miles, as far as we could tell. Glassy, downhill asphalt and uncrowded conditions! Stephen pulled out his skateboard and bombed the hill into the sunset as I drove ahead of him at 15mph. Jealous jealous. Fun times.
Flagstaff, Arizona. This town smelled of burning wood. A sweet, smokey smell. Mesquite? It permeated the downtown in a pleasant way. We parked outside the hotel a few miles from the downtown area and walked. A shortcut away from the highway brought us down a back street with some interesting houses. One looked like it was styled after shipping containers. We walked over to a restaurant that got really good reviews on Yelp! but it turned out to be a bit too pricey for us. So we had sushi instead. Yum.