Gallup, NM, 10-20

Our friend Si took us to the beautifully restored train station and La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona.  These buildings were designed by Mary Colter in the 1920s for the Fred Harvey chain.  Both were scheduled for demolition until private citizens rescued them.

After lunch we drove to the petrified forest and painted desert. 

Over 200 million years ago, the area of the petrified forest was covered by a vast floodplain fed by many streams.  Huge conifer trees grew along the banks of the streams.  Crocodile-like reptiles, giant amphibians, and small dinosaurs lived among a variety of ferns and other plants.

As the trees fell, they were washed by swollen streams into adjacent floodplains.  A mix of silt, mud, and volcanic ash from distant volcanoes buried the logs.  This sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay.  Then silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs, replacing the original wood tissues with silica and, in the process, turning the logs to stone.  (The same process may have been started by the recent eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state.)

When continental plates moved to today's positions, the region was uplifted, and the climate changed.  What had been a tropical environment became today's semi-arid grassland.  Over time wind and water wore away the rock layers and exposed fossilized ancient plants and animals.  The hills will yield more fossils as weathering sculpts the painted desert's soft sedimentary rock.

Some flora of the Painted Desert.

Sites throughout the park tell of human history in this area for over 13,000 years.  Evidence  of these early people fades about 1400 AD, but their earlier dwellings, potsherds, and petroglyphs still tell their story.

Yellow cottonwoods line a stream bed that provided water and transportation for the inhabitants of this desert community.  Cottonwoods in the desert were always a welcome sight to travelers as they indicate the presence of water.