(back to the Petrified Forest!)
The first part of the park is more so vistas of the painted desert, so we parked at all the stops to get photos and see the desert from the bluff. It was so windy up there! Then we looped down to the "forest" part and saw the old petroglyphs they call the Newspaper Rock as well as the agate bridge (a petrified tree trunk that the soil had eroded under til it formed a bridge), the jasper forest (which sadly has been stripped of parts of the stone trees over the years, but most heavily after the railroad was built nearby), the crystal forest...(we walked the path/loop that winded through the petrified logs, and some of them were still intact in long pieces), and finally we went to see the giant logs.
I was so amazed at the formations. The placards talked about how the tress were alive some 250 MILLION years ago, but the way the minerals were taken up to crystallize the trunks still discriminated the tissue types and, other than being a bit more colorful than wood (and sometimes just a bit more sparkly) a lot of times, the bark pieces look like bark, and the exposed wood looks like old exposed wood! It was astounding! ...A perfect stop for two rock-hounds like ourselves, indeed. ;)
So all in all, it took us a few hours to get through the park and see everything. We actually stayed past closed, and then realized that since we were still in Arizona, we would still lose an hour getting to Albuquerque and that we were even later than we thought to get to the Schneiders'. But...sometimes all you can do is keep driving, so that's what we did. :) I think we finally rolled into their place around 11:30 New Mexico time. But Deborah wasn't deterred at all from giving us the grand tour of their GORGEOUS house (it was even adobe style on the outside!!) and feeding us some delicious enchiladas.
I was sad that we didn't get to stay there any longer than overnight, but Albuquerque will just have to go on the list of places I need to go back to and explore a bit better.
That day was a really long day of driving because from Albuquerque we headed to Fort Worth, TX without stopping much, but with an honorary stop in Fort Sumner, NM at the Billy the Kid Museum (which was $5, so we didn't go through it). But we did stop shortly after entering Texas at a nice little taqueria for some yummy food and then continued through the long drag that is west Texas... the flattest place I have eveeeeer seen. We saw our first oil well. And then saw dozens and dozens more. And Aparna explained to me the horrors of natural gas extraction from the earth's crust when we saw some of those contraptions as well. All in all, I was getting kind of sad about Texas. At least the closer we got to central, the more trees we started seeing, so that was nice. We also were able to pick up a desi radio station closer to Dallas. :)
We were pretty tired when we got to Fort Worth, but we found the Teague house without much trouble, and Cameron showed us around the place before we took over free-reign. I couldn't believe how perfect and beautiful everything was! And it was so home-y with all the family pictures around... it was nice to feel close to family. Basically it was an eat and sleep night, but it was cozy.
We met up with Aparna's family friends from Utah in Dallas the next day, including going to the museum that chronicled JFK's death (housed in the building that the shooter sniped him from). I got to see my friend Chelsea, too, since she is in the city for the summer doing some cool cancer research, so we hung around downtown for a bit and (happily!) ran into a very random Pride rally in front of the old red courthouse smack in the downtown. It was so nice to see that side of Dallas, especially because I really did not expect to see such a thing in Texas at all!
The next morning, Aparna and I discovered the AMAZINGGGGGGG Dallas Farmers Market. It was basically two huge outdoor buildings and the sides were completely lined with produce vendors...who gave out SAMPLES! ...I ate the best tomato and onion of my LIFE! So yummy. Lunch was at Jack's Chill Grill, which unfortunately for all the chicas in Dallas was closing that day, but we still very much enjoyed the atmosphere...and the FOOD! The girlies know how to make a kickin' mac n' cheese!... We went to dinner that night at Anjali Aunty's family house, so that was another delicious Indian food night (we got a lot of those this trip!!) and then we sat up late talking into the wee hours.
I think that's good for now. More to come later, but I might take a catch-up hiatus in order to tell y'all about KANSAS CITY!
lovelovelove,
Alia
The first part of the park is more so vistas of the painted desert, so we parked at all the stops to get photos and see the desert from the bluff. It was so windy up there! Then we looped down to the "forest" part and saw the old petroglyphs they call the Newspaper Rock as well as the agate bridge (a petrified tree trunk that the soil had eroded under til it formed a bridge), the jasper forest (which sadly has been stripped of parts of the stone trees over the years, but most heavily after the railroad was built nearby), the crystal forest...(we walked the path/loop that winded through the petrified logs, and some of them were still intact in long pieces), and finally we went to see the giant logs.
I was so amazed at the formations. The placards talked about how the tress were alive some 250 MILLION years ago, but the way the minerals were taken up to crystallize the trunks still discriminated the tissue types and, other than being a bit more colorful than wood (and sometimes just a bit more sparkly) a lot of times, the bark pieces look like bark, and the exposed wood looks like old exposed wood! It was astounding! ...A perfect stop for two rock-hounds like ourselves, indeed. ;)
So all in all, it took us a few hours to get through the park and see everything. We actually stayed past closed, and then realized that since we were still in Arizona, we would still lose an hour getting to Albuquerque and that we were even later than we thought to get to the Schneiders'. But...sometimes all you can do is keep driving, so that's what we did. :) I think we finally rolled into their place around 11:30 New Mexico time. But Deborah wasn't deterred at all from giving us the grand tour of their GORGEOUS house (it was even adobe style on the outside!!) and feeding us some delicious enchiladas.
I was sad that we didn't get to stay there any longer than overnight, but Albuquerque will just have to go on the list of places I need to go back to and explore a bit better.
That day was a really long day of driving because from Albuquerque we headed to Fort Worth, TX without stopping much, but with an honorary stop in Fort Sumner, NM at the Billy the Kid Museum (which was $5, so we didn't go through it). But we did stop shortly after entering Texas at a nice little taqueria for some yummy food and then continued through the long drag that is west Texas... the flattest place I have eveeeeer seen. We saw our first oil well. And then saw dozens and dozens more. And Aparna explained to me the horrors of natural gas extraction from the earth's crust when we saw some of those contraptions as well. All in all, I was getting kind of sad about Texas. At least the closer we got to central, the more trees we started seeing, so that was nice. We also were able to pick up a desi radio station closer to Dallas. :)
We were pretty tired when we got to Fort Worth, but we found the Teague house without much trouble, and Cameron showed us around the place before we took over free-reign. I couldn't believe how perfect and beautiful everything was! And it was so home-y with all the family pictures around... it was nice to feel close to family. Basically it was an eat and sleep night, but it was cozy.
We met up with Aparna's family friends from Utah in Dallas the next day, including going to the museum that chronicled JFK's death (housed in the building that the shooter sniped him from). I got to see my friend Chelsea, too, since she is in the city for the summer doing some cool cancer research, so we hung around downtown for a bit and (happily!) ran into a very random Pride rally in front of the old red courthouse smack in the downtown. It was so nice to see that side of Dallas, especially because I really did not expect to see such a thing in Texas at all!
The next morning, Aparna and I discovered the AMAZINGGGGGGG Dallas Farmers Market. It was basically two huge outdoor buildings and the sides were completely lined with produce vendors...who gave out SAMPLES! ...I ate the best tomato and onion of my LIFE! So yummy. Lunch was at Jack's Chill Grill, which unfortunately for all the chicas in Dallas was closing that day, but we still very much enjoyed the atmosphere...and the FOOD! The girlies know how to make a kickin' mac n' cheese!... We went to dinner that night at Anjali Aunty's family house, so that was another delicious Indian food night (we got a lot of those this trip!!) and then we sat up late talking into the wee hours.
I think that's good for now. More to come later, but I might take a catch-up hiatus in order to tell y'all about KANSAS CITY!
lovelovelove,
Alia
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