North East Arizona

Next we visited the Petrified Forest. In my naiveté, I assumed this 'forest' consisted of trees still rooted in the ground that had turned to stone. Silly me. The trees were washed to the plain more than 250 million years ago (probably the last time it actually rained in Arizona) and were buried in silt. The wood crystallized and is now little more than rocks resembling sawed up tree trunks, lying at the gates of hell (or so the temperatures seemed).

Petrified Forest National Park. More info HERE

There was no shade in the desert and we both found this 'forest' quite exhausting. The ancient Indian petroglyphs were interesting, though we nearly melted trying to view them. We then drove through the Painted Desert, which was one of the highlights I had wanted to see on this trip. It was lovely inasmuch as it had a lot of colors, but it was so beastly hot that afternoon that we didn't even get out of the car.