Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, Arizona

Monday, April 29, 2018

Today we woke up to see a much different landscape at our new sight. Almost no trees. The land is a free range land, in fact, all of the land around the interstate is too. They actually have cattle gaps/guards at the tops of the exit and on-ramps to keep the free ranging animals from going onto the interstate. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any of them free-roaming on the roads.

Today we visited the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park.

The Petrified Forest is a forest of massive-sized fallen trees that have turned from wood to rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They turned from wood to rock, not magically, but by a process of being buried under water for a period of time. That water being rich in silicates, salts and minerals, penetrated into the tree, replacing the rotting wood and bark with quartz and other hard minerals. Click here to read a brief, sensible explanation. Sadly, all that is written and taught by “educated” workers, materials and displays who want to explain it happened over millions and millions of years, leaving the Creator out of it all. But it makes so much sense when you picture this forest with enormous trees being toppled in the Great Flood. Remember, the flood wasn’t just a big rainstorm. The Bible says that the springs of the great deep burst forth while the rains were coming from the skies (Genesis 7:11). Volcanoes and geysers and earthquakes all bursting forth their power under that water sure could have make a catastrophic upheaval, not just killing the animals left on the planet, but disrupting all that was on the face of the planet.

Some of the trees still half buried in the earth.

This cactus reminds us who made all these beautiful things.

 

So, as we walk through these beautiful places, we thank the Creator above for making them and sharing them with us.

 

 

 

 

Every time you look at one, you want to think it is wood. Until you knock on it and it’s as hard as a rock. (0:

 

 

The colors in the rock trees is amazing.

 

 

 

 

They were very large conifer trees.

 

 

 

 

If you notice, the trees look like someone cut them into sections. They broke under the weight of the earth that they were buried in, kind of like how a piece of chalk breaks when you drop it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looks like Jed and Josiah are in a mulch bed. But the “mulch” is tiny pieces of petrified wood…it’s a bed of rocks.

 

 

 

 

In this National Forest, you drive from place to place, choosing which trails you wish to walk. It was VERY windy today, thankfully not cold, but really windy.

These rocks are heavier than you think.

As we drove deeper into the park (heading from south to north…which I would suggest as there is much more to see in the south) we saw the painted badlands. These hills look like they are covered in wrinkly elephant skin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the rainstorm above us. It appears that the rain evaporates before it makes its way to the ground. We didn’t get rained on at all.

 

Dust devil

 

 

More color in the forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, ninja obstacles in a sun shelter at the park.