Respect for Water, Rocks, and Trees that are Also Rocks

While we were in Santa Fe we went to Bandolier National Monument, which is among about a dozen sites we have been to where people lived a very long time ago, on land that does not seem designed for human habitation. When you go to places like this, it makes you think about what it was like for native people to roam these lands, or make a permanent home, in a place where there is very little water, not too many trees,  both extremely hot and extremely cold weather, and very little shelter. It gives me enormous respect for the hardiness and resourcefulness of the people (even though they mostly didn't make it to this age and time). It's hard to stop wondering, where did they go? Why did they leave? It's an enormous mystery.  Many of these sites have incredible petroglyphs too,

so you can't help but spend a lot of time thinking about the people who were here, and wondering about their lives. They left so little of themselves behind; just enough to leave you awe-stricken and curious.

The site at Bandolier had a modern twist, because a year or so ago there had been an enormous flood across this land not suited for rushing water, and it swept much of a small forest down the canyon. The power of the water to sweep away everything in its path is a fearsome sight. In many places in
the southwest there are huge dry creek beds, so wide that it causes you to look around the desert and
wonder how so much water could have rushed by so fast as to leave a huge gap in the surface (not to mention carve enormous canyons), when you can't see any water, anywhere at all. Here is a modern view of the power of the water to move things, from the flood at Bandolier.

This water fountain was at the bottom of  the trail at Bandolier. Not sure how far away it started out.

Much of this land looks like something created for an amazing sci fi movie, with enormous mountains, rocks seemingly balanced on a tiny point high above the land, rocks that look like they have been painted for our enjoyment, and a science lesson which hurts the brain around every corner.

Yesterday we went to Petrified Forest National Park, and the Painted Desert. The views of rock layers in many different shapes and colors was just stunning. I don't think pictures quite reveal how eerie and beautiful and other-worldly  it looks.

All from the Painted Desert

At Petrified Forest, there are logs left from a very long time ago (Triassic, not Jurrasic, which means older than dinosaurs), when this land was densely forested and also kind of tropical. This was at the time before the continents broke apart. We are talking A REALLY LONG TIME AGO. The trees in this forest fell, as trees do, especially when there are torrential floods like the one at Bandolier but worse and for a long time. Then they were under water for a few centuries or millennia....and in a chemistry event that REALLY makes the brain hurt, the silica in the land and water covering the fallen trees started replacing the cells of the trees with cells of rock. No, I obviously don't understand it either. Anyway, then the water left, but first it washed away everything, and now it's a desert with no water or trees anywhere....but there are parts of these trees, that are really rocks, hanging around in a place that used to be a forest. It's all kind of impossible to either explain or understand. 

Some of these petrified logs look so much like rocks that you can't believe it was ever a tree.

 Some look so much like trees that it is shocking to realize it is really a rock. 

And some look exactly like BOTH a rock and a tree.

It's too bad I have never been a science-y person, because there is a boatload of science here that is pretty darned amazing.

We are continuing our trip westward. Next we will be in Sedona, where we will stay for a few days before going on to Joshua Tree. I'll have a lot more opportunity to think about land and rock and desert and the passage of time, and the people who came before, and what a person might learn from it all. If I'm lucky I'll also take some nice walks and drives, maybe ride my bike, and drink some good beer and eat some good Mexican food.

But in the meantime, on the historic Route 66 , there are all kinds of miraculous sights.  Like this one.

And on Highway 40, which replaced Route 66, there also occasionally interesting sights too. But none so amazing as this one:

Yes, they ARE related to me, and there is some sort of cemetery there where people who are related to me from a branch of my grandfather's family (can you tell I have no idea?) are buried, and the whole place is filled with McCarrell people. And even on this tour-the-whole-country-and-take-your-time-doing-it trip, we didn't stop to figure it out.

Maybe next time.