Petrified Forest

August 29th, 2012

Left the Grand Canyon and drove back to Interstate 40 -

Made a detour and went to the Petrified forest.  Very strange to see parts of trees laying on the ground only to realize that it is really rocks.  When we went to the visitor center, the lady there saw Charlie's VT shirt and told us she was raised in Roanoke and went to VT.  It is indeed a very small world. 

We took a small walk to the bluffs and there were signatures from the 1600's - before Jamestown - carved into the rock there.  Pretty cool.  I also did not realize that there were so many volcanoes in Arizona.  We saw lava everywhere, heaving up out of the ground, and broken up in pieces at the visitor center.

As we made our way across New Mexico we stopped at a trading post and looked at the souvenirs and while there we bought some Indian frybread - which was awesome!

We made it across Texas, but since we were about as far as one could get from Houston we were not able to go by and see Michael.  I did text him though and tell him to stay cool.  It was going to be 102 and feel like 112 in Houston today - wow, just wow.   When I checked the weather for Tok and Glacier, it was going to be in the low 40's at night.... 

Tonight we stayed in a rest stop and had a simple dinner since we did not want to heat up the motor home.  When Charlie went out to put the trash in the trash can, we noticed that he had some kind of spiky stickers all over his flip flops, and on the rug.  They were apparently all over the ground and man - they were sharp.  Later I went out to take some pictures and could hear them crunching under my feet - they were just everywhere. I had to take tweezers to get the spikes out of the bottoms of our flip flops.  No idea what plant they were from but I bet they spread well since they can stick to anything and just travel wherever the host goes.

Having the phone working again makes parts of this travel so much easier. We are able to Google which states let you stay overnight in their rest stops as well as which Walmarts allow you to stay in their parking lots.