Cool again this morning but by afternoon it was on with the AC again. And of course clear and sunny – in this part of the world why would you expect otherwise :-). The evening in the Days Inn was great with a nice meal from the small family restaurant. I bailed on having the Navajo Taco which was a good thing. It was a monster, like most food in Texas and Arizona. Smothered or perhaps drowning is a better word in cheese (pepper-jack and American cheese [courtesy of the oil industry] are favorites) and sour cream, tons of sour cream. Somewhere within was meat of some sort, veggies, salsa and of course, red sauce (the best), burns coming and going (sorry).

We spent most of the day in the coolest (neatest) place we have seen in many a year. The Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park. It stretches for about 30nm north to south and starts just off the I-40.

It is like an other planet. Subtle hues of brown, grey, yellows, reds, purples, really every color. From the Painted Dessert to the Tee Pees (structures that remain after all else has eroded) were unique. Dry river beds and of course logs. It looks like someone cut them with a chain saw but apparently a diamond saw is the only way to do it. The trees were buried in swamps a bizillion years ago when the continents were differently aligned. The original wood fiber was replaced with silica over many eons and what was once a tree eventually becomes a glass, quartz, agate, or whatever tree. The colouring comes from iron and other minerals that color the ‘logs’ As the soils underneath the logs erodes away, these logs fall apart in about 1 m sections. Whole areas of the desert floor looked like someone had tossed a couple of cord of wood down there. But unlike wood, the replacement weighs several magnitudes more and a section of 1 m former log can weigh in excess of a ton. I was challenged by the town of Holbrook information guy to pick up a piece. The conversation started because I thought it would be relatively easy to steal a piece. Ha, I was given a 1 foot log slab about 10 inches in diameter and while I could have lifted it, physio would have been required. The stuff is so dense. And this explain why more isn’t stolen, that and it appears to be everywhere. The Navajo and Cherokee both harvest this product from the desert areas of their lands and sell it for about $2 a pound. But within the park, people have been known to take a piece. In fact, you are given a form to fill out if you see someone taking stuff. The story is that if you steal it you will be cursed, unless of course you buy it. Anyhow, the following letter is from what I hope is a younger person full of remorse returning a piece he stole from the park. This and other letters were posted in the ranger station, enjoy!

From there we headed to Flagstaff. There were very high winds and dust and sand were blowing about in dense clouds that brought visibility down to 200m at times. But it cleared after a while and as we approached Flagstaff we drove through the continental divide at 7,335 feet. Trees became more plentiful as we neared the west side of town and hopes were high for a nice treed campground for the night. But it was not to be. We ended up heading towards Grand Canyon just north of the village of Williams. KOA was again our host for the night and a few trees were available that we took full advantage. And of course, the amenities were excellent. We were now just 50 miles form GC and somewhere nearby was the BRT and the LRT but we had no way of n=knowing as they had gone tech-stealth over the previous few days.

A very nice meal and we had booked GC helicopter flights for the following day, but not until 11AM, so a slow start was possible with just 50 miles to go.