08 July, 2019

Color and Crystal

After Albuquerque, the next step of our journey would take us to Williams, Arizona and the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel where we would be staying for three days while we explored the Canyon and the surrounding areas.

When we looked at our route, we noticed that we'd be traveling through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Parks and though that these might be a fun stop; particularly since we had a light day in the car with no pressing engagements.

This would prove to be one of the most rewarding experiences we've ever had.  These parks are incredibly beautiful, an I doubt very much that our pictures, as pretty as they are, can begin to do them justice.  Reader, if you have not been to these places, please go see them.  Take your time, and hike a trail or two if you can.  You will not be disappointed.

We set out from the Hotel Albuquerque after breakfast and a brief look around.  The hotel grounds were inviting, lush with manicured gardens.






Williams is about 5 hours' drive from Albuquerque, so we knew we'd have a good half day to see the parks.  While this was enough time to drive through and make quite a few stops, I can't help think that it wasn't enough time to take it all in properly.

The Petrified Wood and Painted Desert parks are about halfway between Albuquerque and Williams.  The two parks are divided by US Hwy 40, which we were driving on the way up.




















Let me introduce Jennifer's bat from Carlsbad, Batty Bat.  You will be seeing more of him in her photos.




The main Visitors Center for the parks is located at the northern entrance of the park, off of I40, so it was the start of our trip.  We gassed up and got a quick bite to eat in the form of pre-made sandwiches that we would stop and picnic with.













The Painted Desert is beautiful.  I always wondered what inspired artists like Edgar Payne to use such a rich and widely varied tapestry of color in their paintings of the desert.  I think I get it now.






























At Kachina Point, we stopped at the old Painted Desert Inn for lunch and to take a short hike.  The inn used to host travellers on the Santa Fe Rail, but fell out of service as the railway declined in favor of the automobile and Route 66.




































This guy.










After crossing back over I40, we left the Painted Desert National Park behind and entered the Petrified Forest National Park.  One of its first features is not a petrified mineral at all, but rather a prehistoric "billboard" of over 600 petroglyphs, aptly named Newspaper Rock.











Despite no longer being in the Painted Desert Park proper, the uniquely colored geological strata deposited by millions of years of ocean activity, was still quite apparent.





The forest lay strewn all around us, long since turned to stone by the ages.  The once-living trunks were toppled like the columns of a long-dead empire, a forest no longer.  It was a sobering monument to the passage of time that made us feel like brief flickers.  What evidence of our existence would we leave behind?















The Agate Bridge is a single unbroken trunk 110 ft long and 217 million years old.  It is supported by a column of concrete set in 1913.  These dry facts are impressive, but, as usual, can't convey the feeling of standing before it in the sun.








A working pay phone.  Bit of an artefact in and of itself.



And finally, back on the road to Williams.