55th Class Reunion on a Two-Wheeled SUV:
A Two-Wheeled What?
Laying On the Utility
Thinking Small for a Big Trip
Day 1: Tucson to Las Cruces
Day 2: The Road to Santa Rosa
Day 3: Kittycorner to Kansas
Days 4 and 5: Wet Wichita, Sunny St. Joseph
Day 6: This Way to Humboldt
Enjoying Humboldt (Iowa)
Gas Tank Blackjack
The Real Kansas in Technicolor
A Liberal Dose of Memories
Holbrook? How Did We Wind Up In Holbrook?
Painted, Petrified, and Perfect
The Home Home Stretch
Day 8 of return. From my base camp in Holbrook, I ride out and explore the Petrified Forest National Park -- which, it turns out, is really two parks back to back. The north end is a Painted Desert. The south end contains the crystalized wood.
I've been here before, in 1992, but it was late in the season, and a freezing, heavy rain spoiled the whole excursion. The driveable part of the park is 28 miles from end to end, with no exits in between. On that prior occasion, I entered from the south, rode grimly through the rain, made warmup stops wherever I could find an indoor attraction, and emerged to find that the westbound entrance ramp to I-40 was closed for construction. As I recall, the first opportunity to get turned around on I-40 was about 20 miles to the east. Not a happy memory.
This time everything was perfect, fully compensating for the loss of the White Sands expedition. I'll do White Sands some other day.
Here's the view from Tawa Point, the first pullout at which I stopped.
Half a mile further along, Kachina Point contains a Painted Desert Inn, with murals and rest rooms but no food. It's just to look at, a National Historic Landmark renovated in the 1930's by the CCC. Personally, I stopped for the other attraction: it's one end of a Rim Trail back to Tawa Point, for hikers and nature lovers. Here's a hiker's-eye view along the trail.
Nearing the Tawa Point end, I meet a park ranger who is just setting out in the other direction. We stop to chat, and she extolls some of the wildlife (both vegetative and animal) that she has encountered on this trail. There's considerable overlap with wildlife that I've seen around Tucson. I feel a twinge of homesickness.
Riding further, I notice a striking difference between the scenery to the left (east) of the road and what I know is to the right (over the rim of the escarpment). The left side looks somewhat like the flat, scrub desert that I intended to photograph along Highway 54 and some parts of Highway 70 in New Mexico. I'm in luck! I'll photograph it here.
So all right, it's easier to appreciate if you're a loner.
Continuing south through the park, you come at last to the Petrified Forest portion. One of the first pull-outs offers you a view from the top of a small stone cliff, down to a few remnants of what used to be petrified tree trunks. A sign explains that early explorers were so eager to feed the museum and souvenir market that they dynamited the fossils, reducing them to pieces that they could carry out of there. Today, it's illegal to take tree fossils out of the park, but just the same, they continue to disappear. The sign estimates the loss in some depressing number of tons.
For my money, the most interesting of the turnouts in the rest of the park is the Crystal Forest area. Here, too, the petrified tree trunks have been segmented (I don't recall a single intact trunk), but at least you can get up close and take a look. Best of all, there's a three-quarter mile loop trail around the area, for those who are disposed to hike.
Of course, it's happenstance that the mineral crystals which replaced the actual wood happen to be colored like wood. What's convincing is that the detailed structure of the bark, etc., are preserved.
When I emerged from the Crystal Forest, I continued nonstop to the south entrance and visitor center. To my surprise, I noticed that it has no filling station. Not that I was counting on any, but I mention it because I recall that uncomfortable passage in 1992. (On top of everything else that time, I was running short on gas.) Don't enter the park from the south without enough gas to reach the north end (28 more miles). If you enter at the north, don't neglect the filling station there unless you can reach the south end and the nearest town beyond it (Holbrook, Concho, or St. Johns, depending on which way your're heading).
For me, this time, it's been a perfect day.
