The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks called today so a short drive down AZ-180 took us from Holbrook to the NP Visitors center. We checked in at the Ranger entrance gate and showed our National Park pass and were granted admittance. At the visitor center we waited about ten minutes for a Ranger lecture on the time periods involved, the environment, the animals that were around, and the fauna. Apparently the river through this area was as large as the Amazon is today with hugh trees. Some of the petrified trunks in this area were thought to have been carried here from 200 miles upstream. They became waterlogged and were then covered with a layer of volcanic ash which permeated itself into the very core of the cell structure. This picture was taken in the visitor's center and shows the skeleton of a local beast. Behind the skeleton is a mural depicting what the land was thought to look like at the time. Next we drove on up through the park to the dry river bed and the remains of the houses that were built by the inhabitants at the time. When the land gradually dried out and the river stopped flowing they abandonded the area and moved on leaving pictographs and stone foundations.
Across I-40 we entered the Painted Desert NP. I took several small movies of the various points along the road which turned out quite good.
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