Day 8



November 6, 2021

After leaving Kingman, AZ we headed to the Painted Desert.  We kept going up in elevation from 3,500 feet to 7,000 feet.  Here's how travelling through northern Arizona on I-40 looks:

 

We began to see trees as we climbed over about 6,000 feet.  There must be more moisture at the higher elevations:

 

 

As we went further east on the Mogollon Plateau, we saw more desert conditions, fewer trees, and many mesas:

 

 

We arrived at the Painted Desert in due course and checked out the Visitor's Center.  A Ranger there was very helpful on tips about what to see.  When we went into the park, the Painted Desert well exceeded our expectations.  The colors and contrasts in the Painted Desert are dramatic and awe inspiring:

 

In this next picture, notice the crack in the wall on the right side of the picture.  We saw many similar cracks in structures throughout the park.  Maybe there was a recent earthquake:

 

The Painted Desert is a land of many contrasts.  Note the vegetation in the foreground, and the dearth of anything living in the background:

 

Andy has no fear and going past the wall to get a picture is not a problem for him!

 

Here's one of the pictures he took:

 

This shot shows a mesa and the eroded terrain around it.  Notice the different colored layers in the rock:

 

So many different colors everywhere!  Even the rock formations have many different colors:

 

 

The thinker:

 

The desert badlands look so very different in each direction:

 

 

Andy noticed a cave in one of the rock formations.  This first picture shows the cave entrance.  The second picture was taken with the lens zoomed out so you could see the whole perspective:

 

 

The colors in this next Painted Desert picture are even more spectacular in person:

 

After touring the Painted Desert, we drove south in the park into the Petrified Forest.  The colors and contrasts here are astounding too, especially in the pieces of petrified wood:

 

These petrified logs had to have come from huge trees.  Possibly a Redwood or a Sequoia:

 

 

 

They've been lying around here for a very long time:

 

 

Notice the dried mud.  Not much rain here!

 

Before it fell and was petrified, this had to have been a truly enormous tree:

 

We left the park after sunset and drove up to Holbrook for a great dinner at the Mesa Italiana Restaurant.  If you're ever in Holbrook at supper time, it's definitely the place to go.

After supper, we drove on into Gallup, NM to spend the night.  Tomorrow we plan to cruise up to Santa Fe and listen to our home church service on the way.  In Santa Fe, we'll check out Canyon Road and maybe the Bandelier National Monument.  Tune in for details in tomorrow's blog post.

Thanks for reading!