More petroglyphs.

Tracks of 66 in the distance. This is the other end of the road that we explored on the Arizona page with the bridge and abandoned cars.

This is when we are entering the Painted Desert. The lingering telephone poles indicate where Route 66 once was.

This is called Newspaper Rock where the Native Americans left their messages. It's much bigger than it looks because I zoomed in on it for the detail. It's about the size of a bus.

I don't know how many pictures we took here (too many to count). I thought is was so fascinating.

See the layers of sedimentation? It rarely rains but when it does it is continuously washing away more sandstone and the harder stone layers are exposed.

It's impossible to show this as it really is. It looks and feels like different colors of polished stone.

A petrified log is slowly uncovered as the sandstone is gradually being washed away. More and more petrified wood will be exposed over the next several thousands/millions of years.

Even now 12 to 14 tons of petrified wood are removed each year by those who disregard the heavy fines. In the early 1900's tons of wood was carried out in trains and wagons by sightseers.

Easy trail going down, not so easy on the return.

The Badlands of Arizona.

Nathan contemplating. About what, I don't know.

A lone tree growing next to a huge petrified log that was a tree millions of years ago. I find all of this amazing that there were such big trees there in desert. But then, it wasn't desert then. It was a forest!

A happy lizard sunning him/herself.

A fallen petrified log. Sometime in the 1930's (I think) they placed a concrete support underneath it to keep it from falling as the softer sandstone washes away. They do not do these things anymore and prefer to let nature do whatever she wishes with no help OR destruction by man.

The entrance to the Petrified Forest in northeast Arizona.

Saguaro cactus throughout the Arizona countryside.