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| Sunday, September 5, 2004 Painted Desert and Petrified Forest Nat'l Park |
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The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert are barren landscapes, that seem forever the same in all directions, but hold impressive appeal. Hardly a place to spend a lot of time as the climate is forbidding, like much of Arizona, but to stop and ponder the forces and time needed to create such marvels adds to the splendor of these places. The trees in the petrified forest are said to be 150 million years old, so disbelief must be suspended to imagine that this landscape was once covered in a forest of thick, stately trees, and now only silica replicas of that time remain.
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| Sunday, September 5, 2004 Casa Malpais, Springerville |
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Casa Malpais was apparently named in French: mal pays (bad land). The ruins are of a Mogollon pueblo dating somewhere between 1200 and 1450 AD, and included several terraces and levels of construction. In the landscape photo below the outline of several large structures (including the large, most-square one being the kiva) can be seen. The site is unique because there are catacomb burials built into crevices in the rock, but the tours are not allowed near those. Much of what is seen is reconstruction by archaeologists. A video was shown prior to the tour making this sound like a vibrant, active archaeological site, but it appears the video was made at a time when funding was still available; today, the site lies unworked and the tours are the only traffic it sees.
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 View towards Springerville/Eagar |
 View West of Springerville/Eagar |
 Outside of Eagar (not related to Casa Malpais pics) |
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