Painted Desert and Petrified Forest

Making my way west still along I-40.  I stopped and went through Petrified Forest National Park.  From the freeway looking out there seems to only be flat high-country desert but as you drive into the park the canyons open up.  All the different colors come from the deposits that occurred over time and are now exposed from natural erosion.

Aptly named Painted Desert.  This is a photo and not a painting.

Painted Desert.

Petroglyphs on a rock face near an old Pueblo.

It's hard to see in the photo but there are layers of purple and blue in the mesa.

It looks like a rotted log you'd see in the forest in Washington.

There are piles and piles of petrified logs spread around the desert.  The geologists believe at one point this was a forest near the equator and with time and continental drift the trees fell, were covered with silt and given a few millions of years turned to stone.

A new landscaping option: Petrified Wood Chips.

This was sign at one of the pull offs.  A picture of Mt St. Helens.  Future petrified wood.

Driving west towards Flagstaff, AZ with Humphreys Peak in the distance.  Highest point in Arizona at 12,637 feet.

As I was walking around the park I checked the time and kept going.  A short while late I check again and it was the same time.  At first I thought my phone was broken then I realized what was going on.  I had moved into the mountain time zone in New Mexico but Arizona doesn't follow day light saving and my phone hadn't caught up up.  I just happen to look at between changes.  This whole place is about changes through time.