Day 13

Hi folks,

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It rained last night and cleared all of the dust and smoke so it was a beautiful morning.

We left Holbrook about 8:30 and traveled down hwy 180 to  the entrance of the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  We turned out at every opportunity to see the sites.  A very brief explanation of how this wood petrified and turned to rock.  Millions of years ago flooding washed the trees down into a low land which became a swamp.  The trees waterlogged and sunk to the bottom of the swamp.  Over many millions of years silica, sand and other natural minerals in the water soaked into the pores of the wood replacing the natural fibrous tissue found in fresh wood.  The petrification results in amethyst, quartz crystals and other semi-precious stone.  Over millions of more years the climate changed drying up the swamp and erosion has exposed them to the surface.

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We continued on through the park into a section of Badlands.  The in the area of Newspaper Rock.  Ancient Indians scraped and chiseled figures into the stone faces.  Some of them are very interesting.

At Puerco Pueblo there were ruins dating back to 1250 AD where some 1,200 people lived.

We met up with I-40 at the end of the park loop and headed East.  By this time the winds had kicked up again making driving tiring so we stopped for the night in Grants, NM.

Tomorrow we will head for Santa Fe and the capitol.

Nite all,

Jan, Dirinda, Shawn

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