Many years ago, as a child my Aunt and Uncle drove from Bloomington, IL on Route 66 west with the destination of the Grand Canyon. On the journey one of their planned stops was the Petrified Forest. When they arrived home, one of my gifts from the trip was a piece of petrified wood! Their trip sounded amazing and I always wanted to visit that special place.
When we left Albuquerque we planned a visit to the Petrified Forest. Carol had visited this national park several years ago, but I had no idea what it would be like. I kind of thought the petrified trees would be standing…not sure where I got that crazy idea!
The colors in the petrified wood come mainly from three minerals. Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown.
We didn’t hike at the park as we were just passing through and had the Airstream in tow, but we did spend several hours exploring the park and the spectacular colors.
Enjoy the our video!
Love the colors! Surprised by that last shot of the car with a huge specimen loaded though. Are you actually allowed to remove a huge piece like that?
LOL! No, you can’t remove that specimen! That picture was taken at a junk store outside the park…they had tons of petrified wood, not sure how they got it….The car was there to show how heavy the P.W. is.