Glad I got that National Park pass!

I am opening and closing today's blog with panoramas from the Painted Desert.

I made banana pancakes for Audry in Flagstaff this morning. I used the really small bananas, which I hadn't done before, but they were green and the larger ones were yellow. The texture was really interesting. I had to add a lot more eggs than I expected because the batter was so thick. The pancakes ended up almost a biscuit texture.

Remy and I packed up and left Audry's about 8:50. I had a hair appointment scheduled at 9:30 at Red 115. Rhonda, my stylist there, did a very good job, and Remy and I were on the road out of Flagstaff by 10:15.

I'm glad I followed my instincts and the signs, rather than Google, or I would have driven on the highway to the northeast side of the park that houses The Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, and missed out on the beautiful drive through it.

The following are thoughts I had while driving -- mostly on highway 40, not in the park -- interspersed with photos from the National Park.

* In Michigan, bridges generally go over rivers (or highways). Since I've left Michigan, I see that they also go over canyons, gullies, creeks, and washes. In Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, there are no rivers (at least not where I've been). Instead, there are bridges over carved out empty beds called things like "Dry Wash" or "Pueblo River."

* During the Triassic, this area was wet and swampy. There was some sort of deluge that carried trees into a waterway and pulled them to the bottom. Once there, they were impregnated with various minerals, including silica. These minerals took the place of the wood fibers but kept the form. All of this was buried for a very long time. until the Colorado Plateau pushed up, at which time the petrified wood and beautiful colors of the Painted Desert were revealed.

* Teddy Roosevelt was, as with other national parks, instrumental in the preservation of this area, but it wasn't until the 1920s that the park was supported with enough staff to keep it from being plundered. The many beautiful pieces of petrified wood, the crystals, and the jewelry have all come from private sources, not from the park.

* I am driving through, marveling at the vast grasslands dotted with colorful, striped rock formations in the distance, and realizing that no pictures I take can do justice to the majesty of what I see and feel.

Formations worn away by water.

* I keep thinking, "Why did we never come here? Could we not afford it? Would we have been unlikely to travel well together as a family?" We were not campers (except for a horrific trip to Expo '67), so a long, cross-country vacation would have been expensive, I guess. But I grew up seeing these places in Disney documentaries, and always imagined that I would actually see them in person.

* Now I see where the colors of the arts of the Southwest come from. They are the colors of the rock, the sagebrush, and the sky.

* There is something to be said for the National Parks system: you know what you will find when you get to it, any park, that is. Thus, you can pass by all the tiny shacks hocking petrified wood, or Indian artifacts, in favor of the real thing.

* I met a young geologist from the University of Texas. He was lit up with what he was seeing. I am so moved by what I see, I can't believe I have no one to share this with.

See the big, heavy lock? It has the same combination as my last number lock, so it should be easy to remember, but yes, I did write it down!

And a better view of the beautiful new treasure.

* I saw a sign for a hotel with an "In Door Pool." Wonder how they do that.

* The oil tanks and rigs in the foreground kind of ruined the view of the red rocks east of Gallup, NM.

* (because I was listening to NPR) We seem to have come to a point in this country where leadership no longer means representing the best of what a group of people can be, but rather representing the basest common denominator. We don't look to our leaders to set an example -- and perhaps this is the natural outcome of the horrific behavior of some leaders in past decades -- but it is unfortunate that we are satisfied with someone who erupts in word vomit, seemingly thoughtlessly, and who, rather than looking at how to make this country a more collaborative place, goads people into violent reactions to one another.

* There are Native Americans throughout the US. They were here first, after all, although they've all been displaced at some point. I didn't see a lot about them in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or North Dakota. In Montana, I started to see evidence of tribes. In Washington, partly because of Dick and Nancy's involvement with the Suquamish group, but in addition to that, I observed a great deal of attention being paid to multiple tribes in the area. The culture of the Native Americans there is evident.

As I continued to travel through Oregon and California, I didn't see much about the Native Americans who live in those places. Then, in Nevada, and continuing into Arizona and New Mexico, I began to see another presentation -- that of Native Americans as producers and sellers of art and craft. Signs are everywhere hawking "Indian" arts and crafts. 

I know there are Native Americans in the Grand Rapids area and other areas of Michigan. I wish they were more visible. I would like to know more about the culture that existed in that area before the Europeans came.

Ahhh! The Painted Desert!