Road Trip 2025: Day 18

I did not sleep well last night. I could not get comfortable. I was too chilly in just my sleep sack, but too hot in my sleeping bag. I finally fell asleep sometime after 4 o’clock and had a really strange dream. A friend of mine asked me to help remove an inside door from her neighbor’s house. I didn’t understand why until we got inside and I realized it was a ruse to find out if the neighbor was involved in mob activity. I gasped and my alarm abruptly sounded, jarring me awake and yanking me out of my dream.

En route to Petrified Forest National Park, we once again drove through the Navajo reservation. Much of it is desolate. There is all this vast open space, but there are pockets of communities, houses and trailers—many appearing in need of renovation—squished close together. It’s depressing just how impoverished the people seem to be. Aside of some tourism in northern Arizona and at the four corners, there is no sign of industry.

The Petrified Forest is not a forest, as Kati was disappointed to discover. In fact, there are practically no trees in the park. The petrified forest is actually the fossilized remains of a prehistoric forest. Petrified wood are logs that have been transformed into quartz. In order for this to occur you need four things: Trees or wood, water and lots of it, silica, and air to dry out the wood.

A tree can become petrified if it falls into water. And back millions of years ago, back when there was one continent—Pangea—what is now Arizona was down near the equator. Therefore, instead of being a desert, its environment was similar to Costa Rica—a swampy forest. When trees died, they fell into rivers. Getting submerged, they were cut off from oxygen and bacteria which are key elements in the rotting or decaying processes. At the time, there was a great deal of volcanic activity. Volcanic ash is rich in silica. The ash fell into the water, and the trees, being porous, absorbed this mineral rich water. When water levels retreated or the wood was deposited on land, as it dried, the log weathered out of the stone. What remained was quartz. This area was made a national park because it has the highest concentration of petrified wood in the entire world.

As we walked along a few of the paths in the park to see the petrified wood up close, I was absolutely mesmerized by the presence of so many vivid colors in the quartz. They ranged from red, to pink, to blue, to yellow, and black. These different colors are caused by the presence of iron during the fossilization process. Impurities in the iron (variations in the number of electrons in the iron) produce different colors. If copper is added to the iron it produces blue, whereas copper and chromium added to iron yield green.

The Painted Desert and Blue Mesa—both clusters of sedimentary rock formations—were also interesting to see. The painted desert actually looked as if the rock formations were painted various shades of red and pink, along with some white for contrast. The Blue Mesa were striped—mostly shades of blue and white with a touch of red and orange—rock formations. As with other rock formations, the layers represent various “events,” in earth’s history. Geologists can determine when the earth was covered with rivers and streams as opposed to when it was dry based on sedimentary colors, as well as the presence of different fossils. And many fossils have been found in the park—fossils of dinosaurs, reptiles, and other animals.

Not only does the park preserve nature and geological features, it also preserves history. A portion of Route 66 once ran through the park. During the Great Depression, The Civilian Conservation Corps built roads and paths in the park that are still in use today. And of course Native Americans—Pueblos—lived in what is now the park for 13,000 years. They left behind stone foundations of their villages along with petroglyphs carved into rocks. Yes, I made a point of seeing the petroglyphs, especially Newspaper Rock which has hundreds of images etched into it. I was excited to see them—in never gets old. G3 and Kati fail to understand the allure.

Our neighbor fed our cats today and Kramer—our perpetually scared fur-baby—made an appearance. We know he’s alive and eating because we see him eating the dry food on the ring camera, but he’s been in hiding every time someone comes over to dish out the wet food. I am glad he came out and was able to eat something a bit different today. I miss my cats so much. I hope they don’t hate me too much when we return.

After several nights of dispersed camping, Kati decided to use her Wyndham points to get a hotel for a couple of nights in Albuquerque. It has been a week since we last showered so it will be nice to be clean. We are heading to Albuquerque because G3’s favorite television show is Breaking Bad. He asked if we could please detour there so he could visit locations in the city that were filmed in the show. That is what we will be doing tomorrow.

It rained this evening as we were driving to Albuquerque. I guess Kati picked a good night for a hotel. We didn’t need to worry about scoping out a campsite and setting up in the rain. As soon as we got to the hotel, we took our showers. Then, since G3 is super excited about taking us on a Breaking Bad tour tomorrow, he had us watch the first episode. I had never seen it, and G3 wanted me to be somewhat familiar with it. He says he has mapped out our itinerary for tomorrow. I am really enjoying his excitement and anticipation.