The Painted Desert

The Petrified Forest National Park includes the beautiful landscapes of what is called the "Painted Desert" of eastern Arizona.  Both are just off of Interstate 40 in the northeastern part of the state.  On a beautiful two-hour drive, you see the fallen trees of the Petrified Forest, turned to rock ages ago, and the incredible colors and landforms of the Painted Desert.  If it weren't so hot, you could just stay all day and look.

Petrified Forest Pics...

Painted Desert...

Petroglyphs scratched by Indians into rocks

 At an exhibit near the end of the drive, I discovered that I was roughly following the old Route 66 on this part of my journey.  A lot of the old "tourist traps" are now dried up, but they break the monotony of driving.  Still, like Wyoming, this part of the nation has a stark beauty and a vastness that's hard to explain to somebody from the East who hasn't seen it.

The most incredible thing I've ever seen

Yesterday I drove north from Phoenix, stopping at Montezuma's Caste National Monument.  It wasn't built by Aztecs, so the European-given name isn't really appropriate, but it's a wonderful example of cliff dwellings.  The Verde Valley of Arizona was a popular trading route, and the Indians who lived here 700 years ago were farmers and traders.





From there, it was about 100 miles to the Grand Canyon.  I planned a trip to the Canyon about 20 years ago, but had car trouble on the way and couldn't complete the journey.  I'm so glad I was able to see this place, finally!  No words that I could say here can add to what anybody else has said to describe it.  It is simply the most beautiful place I have ever seen.  To walk around with hundreds of people who are feeling exactly the same thing is an amazing experience as well.  Surely, God is by far the greatest artist ever!

Crossing the desert

On Saturday, I drove across the desert from Southern California to Phoenix, Arizona.
Here are the pictures...



As I drove through southeastern California, there were beautiful mountains to the right.  These are the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.





After passing Palm Springs, with its "oasis in the desert" look and its entertainment complexes, the Joshua Tree National Park is just to the north of the highway.  It's actually a combination of two deserts.  The one farther north, which I didn't drive through, actually has the Joshua trees (they kinda look like combinations of a tree and a cactus).  Apparently, the temperatures aren't as consistently high up there, and they can survive.  The lower part of the desert (the Colorado desert), which I saw, was very dry and very hot.  It had some scrubby plants, but nothing much higher than your head.

As I crossed into Arizona, I saw a dust storm blowing in the distance.  It was probably about the size of a house, not much bigger than that.  Sometimes drivers have to stop for big ones.

I had never seen a great big sajuaro cactus growing in the wild.  There was a section of I-10 where they were growing all over the place on both sides of the road.  I couldn't get a picture until I stopped at a rest area.  They appeared to be about 15 to 20 feet tall.



Temperatures on the highway rose to 111 degrees!  At night, it only fell to about 82, even though it was 104 at 7:30 and 102 at 8:30pm.  They expect EVEN HOTTER days this week!