What wood doesn't burn?

Answer:  Petrified Wood

The Petrified Forest National Park has one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood.  It is also home to the multi-hued badlands of the Painted Destert. 

"the colorful badland hills, flat-topped mesas and sculptured buttes of the Painted Desert are primarily made up of the Chinle Formation.  The sedimentary rock mainly consists of fluvial deposits" - http://www.nps.gov/pefo/upload/geology2006.pdf

Right on Route 66, it was easy to pull of the road for a spell and do the drive through the park.  Make sure you pee at designated pee stops because if you wait until the next one, it could be a while, especailly with my little teeny tiny bladder. 

Eons ago some logs were buried by sediment before they could decompose while volcanoes to the wes spewed tons of ash into the atmosphere.  Winds carried ash into the area where it was incorporated into the deepening layers of the sediment.  Ground water dissolved silica from the volcanic ash and carried it through the logs.  This solution filled, or replaced cell walls, crystallizing as the mineral quartz.  the process was often so exact that the replacement left a fossil that shows eery detail of the logs' original surfaces and, occasionally, the internal cell structures.  Iron rich minerals combined with quartz during the petrification process created the brilliang rainbow of colors

Resource:  http://www.petrified.forest.national-park.com/





Agate Bridge

"The agate Bridge is a natural formation created by centuries of scouring flood waters that washed out the arroyo beneath this 110 foot petrified log.  The stone log, harder than the sandstone around it, resisted erosion and remained suspended as te softer rock beneath it washed away.  Enthusiastic visitors fascinated by the Agate Bridge worked to preserve it through the establishment of the Petrified Forest National Monument in 1906.  Conservationists felt this ages-old natural bridge needed architectural support and in 1911 erected masonry pillars beneath the log.  In 1917 the present concrete span replaced the masonry work"

Resource:  http://www.legendsofamerica.com



More Petroglyphs

"Petroglyphs were made using two techniques.  A direct blow to the surface of the boulder with a hand-sized hard, rounded rock called a hammer-stone removed the boulder's darkened surface but did not allow control in placing the peck mark.  If a hammer-stone was used in conjunction with a chisel, however, greater control could e exercised, resulting in a superior effect"

Resource:  http://www.legendsofamerica.com/



"Get closer mommie! 
Get closer! 
There he is! 
Did you get him?"

We even got so see some local wildlife.

Yes we all know how much I love snakes!

I was shaking in my boots trying to take this picture....darned kids...

I don't know what kind of snake it is, I don't care...

I snapped the picture and got the

H--E--double toothpicks--outta there!

Morgan and Monica...vision of fashion I'd say!

So long from the petrified forest! On to the next destination...where is that you ask? 

I have no idea until we get there!