Nov 5 - 6 Nov 7 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 11 - 12 Nov 13 Nov 14 - 15	Monday, November 13 We got up at 7. Breakfast was at the hotel. Tickets needed for breakfast admission?? Oookaaay.... The breakfast room and the hired help drove us crazy - see tomorrow's entry for details... We spent the day at Petrified Forest National Park. Nice day. I got a bit too much sun. Our first stop was at the Visitor's Center at the south end of the park and the half mile trail there called Giant Logs Trail. The photo on the left shows the view from the Visitor's Center across the petrified log segments scattered across the landscape. The photo on the right is one of the larger logs laying in segments next to the trail. The photo on the left shows some petrified log segments scattered among the colorful badland formations that cover this park. The photo on the right shows the end of one log with the badlands in the background. . . . These three photos take a closer look at the minerals that replaced the vegetative material of the original trees. The photo on the left shows that some of these minerals managed to look like this tree still has bark on it. The photo on the left shows Carl striking a pose next to "Old Faithful", one of the really large trees in the forest. There was a photo of Albert Einstein standing in this same spot and Carl was trying to duplicate it. The photo on the right is a cane cholla located near the Visitor Center parking lot. The yellow bits are the fruit for this cactus. This specimen was the best looking one we saw all day. Our next stop was at the Crystal Forest with another short trail through the exposed segments of petrified wood. The segments of tree along this trail were all linked together in long segments that really gave a good idea just how big these trees were way back when. The photo on the left above shows me shooting something off in the distance. The other two photos show some of the massive log segments strewn around this area. Most of these "logs" were a couple of feet in diameter. Still on the Crystal Forest Trail, the photo on the left shows one of the long petrified logs hugging the ridgeline. The center photo shows some of the colorful badlands along this trail. The photo on the right shows a closer view of one of the logs. This one really looks like a chopped piece of wood. The photos to the left and right show more of the really long logs along this trail. The center photo shows the view along a log which looks like it has bark separating from the trunk. All of this is fossilized. Lunch consisted of apples and energy bars at one of the stops. The photo to the left is one of the few I took at the Jasper Forest Overlook. There's a long trail here that winds along the valley floor, but we passed on hiking it. The photo shows the badlands littered with chunks of petrified wood. Way back when, this was a major stopping point for people visiting the park. Driving into this valley is no longer allowed as it was destroying the fragile landscape. Our next stop was at Agate Bridge. A seasonal river carved a path under this large fossilized log many years ago. Since these massive pieces of petrified wood are very heavy, an attempt was made back in the early 1900s to reinforce this phenomenon with a concrete span. Now it is also deteriorating. The park service has no plans to replace it, but will let nature take its course. From there, we continued on to the Blue Mesa Trail, which is a motor trail along the rim of Blue Mesa. The photo to the right shows the highlight of the first overlook stop. There are a series of these large petrified logs that look like they're on a pedestal as the underlying soil has eroded around it. There used to be another one to the left of this one, but the erosion was too great. It tumbled down the slope about 50 years or so ago. The ranger discovered its demise between one morning and the next... We stopped at just about all of the overlooks along this drive. The photo on the left above is the view across a valley to another colorful mesa. The center photo shows a ravine filled with petrified wood segments that had tumbled down over time. The photo on the right looks along the edge of Blue Mesa. These three photos show various views of the other side of one of the valleys demarking Blue Mesa. The center and right one show a walking trail along the bottom of one of these valleys. It was a long, hot trail and it was getting late in the day, so we passed on this one. Our next stop was at Newspaper Rock, featuring the petroglyphs shown in the photo to the left. Then on to Puerco Peublo, where we found this original Visitor's Center for the Petrified Forest at the edge of the parking lot. Back in the day, this was a convenient stop off of Route 66. Today, it sits in the middle of the Park, quite a distance from either of the two entrances. These three photos were taken at Puerco Pueblo ruins. The center photo shows a view of the surviving walls of this small pueblo. The photo on the left shows some petroglyphs, including one that's either a stork delivering a baby (?) or a myth about giant birds absconding with small children. The photo on the right has another set of petroglyphs. There were almost as many visible petroglyphs here as at Newspaper Rock! The Petrified Forest National Park is the only national park that has an Interstate Highway crossing it. It crosses near a point where the old Route 66 also crossed the park. To mark the older route, the park service put in this memorial and some people donated a very old car (or what's left of it) to mark the spot. The photo on the left has the grill of an old car embedded in concrete. The other two photos show the 1932 Studebaker that currently marks this site. My understanding is that the car at this site has to be replaced periodically. From here, we continued into the Painted Desert portion of the park. We stopped at the first three overlooks to look around. The photo on the left is the view from Whipple Point. The center photo is the view from Nizhoni Point. And the photo on the right is from Pintado Point. We still had a half dozen stops left on the route when we called it quits and headed back to the hotel. We were beat. We'll pick up from here tomorrow... We got back to the room and the keys didn't work... And the desk clerk had two calls on hold and two other people checking in – one of which had billing problems.... She finally got to me and regenerated the encoding on the keys and we were finally able to get into our room... We had a beer each while relaxing from the day. We drove back to Tom and Suzie's Diner for dinner again. It was less busy than last night. But the nice waiter we had last night was replaced with a surly waitress. She insisted that the red wine was supposed to be served chilled????? I had the tempura chicken strips (yum) and Carl had chicken fajitas. She did finally swap out the wine, but she seemed put out about it. Then it was back to room for more Harry Potter. Next...