7/3/07

As we headed east, we made a stop in Arizona to visit the Petrified Forest. We spent some time at the Rainbow Forest musuem where we saw a film about the forest. Did You Know?Petrified wood at Petrified Forest National Park is almost solid quartz, weighing in at 168 pounds per cubic foot. It's so hard, you can only cut it with a diamond tipped saw! We did some hiking about the forest. We also visited Newspaper rock where we could view petroglyphs, which are lines or drawings on rocks made by prehistoric people. Did You Know? Petroglyphs are sometimes calendars, marking events like the summer solstice with interactions between the glyph, the sun, and natural landscape features. We made another stop at puerco pueblo where the remains of a 100 room pueblo exist. Our final stop was to view the painted desert from an overlook. After we left the national park, we stopped at Stewart's trading post. Thanks to the generousity of the owner, Gazell Stewart, we were each given a sample of petrified wood as a souvenier. We also were given food to feed her many ostriches. The ostriches were so quick to feed, they kept snatching our food cups out of our hands. Ostrich food was flying everywhere. These ostriches were scarrier than the rattlesnakes at Praire dog town. We did get our first taste of ostrich jerky ( yum??). Back on the road again, we made it to New Mexico before stopping to rest.