PETRIFIED FOREST AND PAINTED DESERT

We stopped here between Las Vegas and Albuquerque. But I'm not 65 anymore and I'm blogging after the fact and I was excited about seeing John and we had such a great time with him in Albuquerque

SOOOOO  -  here is a post that should have been before Albuquerque.

These two National Parks, even combined, are quite small by NP standards. One day would be plenty of time to see it all IF we didn't go wilderness backpacking. So, we did it in one day.

Our first planned stop was the Painted Desert Inn, but there were a couple of overlooks and short trails first.

The original building on this site was the "Stone Tree House" which was built in 1927 by Herbert Lore. It was made of petrified wood. Very remote, it was a long ride from town but guests came for the spectacular views. No electricity, no water on site. A generator provided electric but fuel and water had to brought in by horse and wagon from the railroad.

Here is a picture of the original building from a NPS website.

When the Park Service took over in 1936 plans to renovate the building were found to be impractical. It was built on clay which was constantly shifting and destroying the mud that was used for mortar.  To quote one of the NPS Rangers, Mr. Lore's concept was exceptional. Not so much his execution.

The old adobe walls were reinforced on a new foundation and the building was made to look like a pueblo adobe building.

It is a museum now, furnished a little like the Stone Tree House and a lot more like Grand Canyon's buildings because Mary Colter designed the interior along with Hopi artist Fred Kabotie.

Wall Mural.

Basement Tavern.

Dining Room.

Lower entrance showing some of the original petrified wood walls.

Ceiling in main room.

Navajo loom.

All of that was interesting but we came to see the landscape.

And it didn't disappoint us.

Historic Route 66 goes through the middle of the park.

This area is an important archeological site. The park's earliest resident arrived at least 8000 and more probably 10,000 years ago. By 150 BC they were living in villages and growing crops. Probably for climatic reasons, the area was abandoned around 1400AD. There are villages that are thought to have been inhabited by about 200 people. This excavation centers on an open courtyard that was surrounded by 100 one story houses. There were also several large granaries capable of storing enough grain for a year's consumption.

More petroglyphs.

There are many solar markers in the Southwest dating from 2000 - 5000 years ago.

Sunlight shines through the crack in this boulder so that at 9AM on June 22nd, the sliver of sunlight hits the exact center of this bulls-eye petroglyph.

We were not there at the right time but here is a picture and a diagram from an NPS website.

Entering the Petrified Forest NP we still see beautiful "painted desert."

There is petrified wood on every continent including Antarctica but the Petrified Forest is the largest collection by far.

Formed around 225 million years ago, the logs are all along the walkways and easy to see, photograph and even touch. The colors are magnificent and the details remaining from the wood are amazing.

From here we went to Albuquerque but you already know that. So our next blogged stop will be Lubbock, TX. We are headed toward home.

And life is good.