Alley pickin'

Petrified Forest is the only national park to host a section of the Mother Road, Route 66. For the longest time it freaked me out that walkable sections of it appeared in two widely separated sections of the park, and what seemed to me to be at right angles to each other. I don't know how long it took me to figure out the road through the park has a switchback at the north end, so the park road touches Interstate 40 and Route 66 twice. Anyway, the section on the north end is close to where I call home and I walk it every once in a while. On that end of the park, it skirts the Painted Desert on the east for a short while and then goes off cross country.

Where 66 appears farther to the south in the park there's a faint, grassed-over depression in the earth, and with your imagination you can see the ghost of the old highway, but on the section in the north, pavement intermingles with gravel areas and is kept clear of weeds by vehicular traffic from park staff who use the road for one reason or another.

Between the road and the Painted Desert lies what I first thought was the park landfill; a couple of acres of trash surprised the heck out of me the first time I wandered out there because it was such an anomaly for an organization that's dedicated to preserving natural resources. Then I found out there used to be a lion farm, The Painted Desert Park and Zoo of Native Animals, which held a motley collection of wild critters. It had no association with the park but the owner was trying to make a living by capitalizing on its proximity to Route 66. When the government bought the property in the late 1950s and razed the whole mess a short time later, the trash got left behind and what a scavenger hunt it has turned out to be. Bottles, cans, hubcaps, pop bottle tops, dishes, all kinds of good junk. Lots of the glassware is broken and when you think it's been half a century since the place closed down, it's amazing that anything breakable is unbroken. Many pieces look like this,

 and are found in areas that look like this, piles o' trash:

 so when intact items show up, with lids even,

or little treasures like this bottle with the stepped, deco-looking sides, it's a pleasant surprise.

 

Intact Coke bottles are ubiquitous.

Broken dishware abounds; I've found the remains of a few different sets.

Consider a stroll through the area if you're in need of car parts. I don't guarantee good condition, but they're there, like this hubcap from a Hudson, maybe,

a fender skirt from who knows what,

or a mud flap. I don't know that I've ever seen a metal one before.

People's food preparation habits are in evidence, as shown by this two-course meal,

and the bowl used to mix something or other.

Extracurricular activities like photography,

adding to one's seashell collection (in the desert?),

or playing a game of marbles are represented.

But here's my favorite find so far. How long has it been since you've seen a LePage's glue bottle, and intact to boot? It made my day.

A gorgeous morning with the sun at my back, and I couldn't resist looking taller. But tell me, does this shadow make my butt look big?

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Thought of the day:
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party. (Jimmy Buffet)

I love the nightlife

A month or two ago I was out walking the main road in the park at night, headed to the Painted Desert Inn. This was not a new activity for me; I really like to walk after dark because the stars - oh, the stars are a blaze overhead. It's one of the most beautiful things ever. I carried a little flashlight, planning to use it on my way back to make sure I was staying more or less between the white lines. It's not very powerful but for that I didn't need power.

I hadn't gotten very far up the hill when I heard what could maybe be described as a cross between a growl, a whine, and a purr. Or it could just be described as vaguely threatening. I've logged many, many miles on that road and this was something new and not Not Good. My puny flashlight was no comfort. I turned it on and played it out in front of me, all the while walking but having the sense to at least slow down. Well, this magnificent flashlight illuminated the ground about as far as my arm could reach, which is to say not far. You know how when you're trying hard to see something but it's dark or too far away or you have geriatric eyes, so you use the muscles around your eyes to kind of push them out, like they're on stalks you can extend and retract, like it actually helps you see better? Well, that's what I was doing, trying very hard to see, and then I was rewarded with a dark shape on the white line on my side of the road. How I knew it was organic and not a rock or a break in the paint, I'll never know, but it made me stop. It moved. Ok, then. Whatever it was, it wasn't a cute puppy.

S-l-o-w-l-y I put one foot behind the other, backing away, keeping the stalks extended, watching the critter move slowly into the weeds on the side of the road. When it seemed safe, I turned around and headed for home, and I will swear till my dying day that the noise that animal made did not diminish even though I was moving away at a pretty good clip. I will swear it was following -- nay, stalking me. I've never had such a good excuse to light the afterburners and get a move on. I described what little I saw to my boss the next morning and she guessed it was a spotted skunk. I count my blessings.

So this brings me to a couple of nights ago when I was privileged to ride along on a night ride with the biotech, a young woman who monitors wildlife in the park. Every Monday night after the monsoons start she heads off through the park at dusk, driving around 20 mph the entire 27-mile length, and then turns around and comes back. She stops for every critter and if she can catch it she will, and then documents it - species, age, sex, condition, where found - and then puts it off on the side of the road in the direction it was headed when she caught it.

We'd gone a long dry distance, nothing on the road, and then started seeing frogs. She caught one and taught me how to hold it so it wouldn't leap out of my hand. Try as I might to get a decent photo of it, the darned thing would not stop breathing or moving.

When I managed to catch one a little farther down the road it promptly peed all over my hand. Frog pee. A first for everything. A baptism, if you will.

A while later we caught another frog, a different kind that's not as cute as the first one, but it managed to sit still a little better. 

We spotted a porcupine and decided it didn't need catching, a few really cute little pocket mice that we had no chance of catching, a lizard or two that eluded us, and then she spotted a snake and we piled out of the truck. She knew from a distance that it was a rattler, I think what she called a Hopi rattlesnake. It's a small variety, maybe 18 inches long, but we kept a respectful distance. It moved itself off the road and we continued but didn't see much else. We were gone about three hours and she said there are nights she's out five or six, there are so many animals to catalog.

After hearing, and I'm telling you being stalked by, the skunk and then seeing the porcupine and rattler, it makes me think a little harder about going out after dark but I went out at dusk last night anyway. There was nothing more threatening than this jack rabbit.

And maybe the risk was worth the sunset I saw from Pintado Point, where the expansive views of the painted desert are unmatched anywhere else. What do you think?

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Thought of the day:
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle. (Walt Whitman)

Water as paintbrush

Yesterday I took another hike into the Painted Desert and this time did not get lost coming out, thank you very much. Luckily for me, someone had ridden a horse down the trail and the hoofprints, not to mention other mementos, left as big a trail of breadcrumbs as I could hope for. Also I paid attention this time, which believe it or not makes a difference.

I wandered all over, keeping an eye on the clouds that were coming and going; monsoon season isn't over yet.

The darkish spots near the horizon did not look good.

  

 

The other times I've been in the desert I've gone to the northeast, but added a side trip in the opposite direction yesterday, when the clouds stopped looking at all threatening. The side trip took me to a section of Lithodendron Wash, a superhighway of a mostly dry wash that meanders all over the place:

 

 

The wash was dry when I dropped down into it, but a short way farther on there was lots of evidence that water had recently gone through, and in fact was still standing in places.  

What a beautiful thing mud can be. Not so much if you have to clean it up, but it makes unique patterns that are fascinating to look at when it's outside where it belongs. 

I saw this and immediately thought it wouldn't have taken some Puebloan person long to figure out that this could somehow be useful. Maybe add a little fire?

 

The echoing shapes are lovely.

The wet shine adds a depth all its own.

 

Lots and lots of texture - giant footprints headed off into the distance.

 

If you've ever made chocolate shavings you'll see the similarity right away.

Isn't this interesting, the way the cracks act as a resist to the water?

Little oases are just now drying out.

Ripples and stripes highlighted by mineral deposits.

 

Ribs coming off a spine? Could be.

 

Looks like tiger stripes to me.

 

Here's another cat, a real one. What a find!

It was a great day to hike, the desert is always interesting, but that climb out is still a killer. Four times now and it's not getting any easier.

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Thought of the day:

This world is but a canvas to our imagination. (Henry David Thoreau)

Jasper Forest - a photo documentary

What a good gig I have, working 32 hours a week for free RV space in one of the country's most beautiful neighborhoods. Considering that most of the time the job is rewarding, challenging, and fun, how could it be any better than this? 

Today, on my day off, when the rest of the working world was clock-watching, I drove to the Jasper Forest, once upon a time called the First Forest because it was the first large accumulation of petrified wood reached when traveling from Adamana, a stop on the Santa Fe railroad. Adam Hanna, entrepreneur and capitalist, conducted tours to the First Forest (Jasper), the Second Forest (Crystal Forest), and the Third Forest (Rainbow Forest). I've been to all three forests and Jasper is, in my opinion, the most spectacular. It has the most impressive concentration of petrified wood and the most colorful.

Bill the paleontologist led a group there early on in my sojourn here. It's been on my repeat list and today was the day. All I wanted to do was document the variety of wood found there so here is a sample:

 

OD green. Kind of unusual.

I just came across a 1950s visitor brochure called Agatized Rainbows. I see where someone would call it that.

It looks like regular wood, doesn't it?

This is the kind of rock I'd choose if I was in the market for arrowhead-making material.

This had tiny crystals that sparkled in the light.

Doesn't this look like wood chips from a chopping block? It's called "lithic scatter."

Lots of crystals on this one. Very pretty.

 

Soil legs will eventually wash away.

A close up of a larger piece.

There are many of these larger pieces around, most of them being about hip-high on me.

It's nearly impossible to walk without stepping on a dozen pieces.

I know visitors don't get all they can from the park. They have agendas. Vacation time is limited. There are other priorities. I was at Painted Desert Inn one day and a man was shouting at his family to hurry up. "We have to get to the Grand Canyon!" It really is a shame, and Jasper Forest is a case in point. There's an overlook that people spend maybe five minutes at, snapping pictures like this,

when this is what the Forest looks like on the ground, and anyone can go down into the valley to see it first hand. Every one of those dimensional items is petrified wood, and you've seen what it looks like when you're walking all over it.

[edited 8/10 to add this:]

The colors of the petrified wood are determined by the minerals present when the wood was undergoing the long process of petrification.

Red, tan, orange, purple, pink, and yellow - iron in a ferric state. 

Green - copper, chromium, and iron in a ferrous state.

Blue - copper and iron in a ferrous state.

Black and gray - carbon and manganese.

The difference between ferric and ferrous has to do with the oxidation state. That's the extent of my knowledge, with thanks to Wikipedia.

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Thought of the day:

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. (Miriam Beard)