Petrified Forest National Park

This month rather than fly to Albuquerque or El Paso I thought I'd hit the road and conduct my routine business in both locations while taking in a few sights along the way.  Today's trip from Phoenix to Albuquerque had me passing by Petrified Forest National Park so I turned off the highway and back in time 250 million years to the Triassic age.  The road to the petrified wood first leads through the Painted Desert.

Puerco Pueblo is an ancient village that contained 100 rooms and a central courtyard.  It was occupied between 1250 and 1400 A.D.  The occupants are believed to have migrated into the Hopi and Zuni nations.

Then the Crystal Forest and Rainbow Forest appear strewn with what were once 200 foot trees and are now beautiful log stones filled with sparkling crystals.

On the original supercontinent, Pangaea, the location of the modern day Petrified Forest was subtropical, around the current location of Panama.  Giant trees eventually fell into the water and millions of years of silt and volcanic ash covered and protected them from rotting.  The silica from the ash eventually permeated the wood and crystals began to grow.  Then a few million years later after severe weathering the petrified wood appeared where what was once the tropics and is now the Arizona desert.  Several ferocious dinosaur fossils have been unearthed as well.

The Petrified Forest is just off of Interstate 40 in Northeastern Arizona and is well worth a stop for two to three hours of exploring 250 million year old fossils.