Painted Desert & Petrified Forest

Sunday morning, the kids were up around 6:30, Rich brought the RV to their house by 7:00 and we were on the road at 8:00...some of you may not fully appreciate how unusually fantastic that was.

Because it's now O-dark-hundred (a unit of time that may be unfamiliar) Monday night, I'm just going to post a couple of photos (I had to come back and explain that I just couldn't post only two photos...sigh). We made it to our planned destination of Holbrook, Arizona just in time to cruise through the Petrified Forest National Park. That Park includes the Painted Desert which is where these first photos were taken.

Moving down through the park, we stopped at Newspaper Rock which was a fascinating surprise to all of us. Using scopes that are provided and searching diligently through them we found many petroglyphs on the rocks below the viewing platform. Here are a few shots; Dylan would have liked to stay much longer but the park was closing at 6:00 p.m. so we had to hustle more than any of us would have liked.

We stopped next at Agate Bridge. This is a tree trunk that turned to agate over the centuries. It is so very fragile and in 1911 concrete support was added underneath to keep it from collapsing. In the photo of the kids taken at Agate Bridge, you can see that the sun was setting.

Moving quickly on, we did arrive at a large field of petrified wood, in all its rainbow coloration, which is something I've wanted to see for years. Here is a small sample...

The path through this field of petrified wood wound its way up and around some small hills. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite photos of the kids...isn't it amazing? After she had the kids, my lovely and talented daughter taught me that often the best photos are those where the subject is not looking at the camera. That tip opened up a whole new world of photos, like this one!

They all ran ahead to the car while I dallied a while photographing the rocks in the dwindling light. As I approached the car, this is what I saw...never have I seen such brilliant, electric-looking, outlines of clouds at sunset...oh my!

Lovin' Life ~~ and the Beauty That Surrounds Us!

  Bev