Days 10-11 Petrified Forest, Painted Desert, Four Corners, Mesa Verde

We continued along Route 66, which is one of the first highways between L.A. and Chicago. The current freeway goes along this route through Arizona so it was fun to see Route 66 signs along the way.
I can't believe how Flat and Dry Arizona is! Miles and miles of flatness with no vegetation. There was not much to see:

We reached the Petrified Forest National Park in eastern Arizona. It wasn't what I would call a "forest" but after driving through Flat and Dry Arizona, I guess I was expecting too much.

Many, many years ago, this area use to be a swamp land and there was a forest. A big storm knocked the trees down and they were submerged in water. Mud, silt and volcanic ash filled the crevices of the trees and they were buried in the mud so quickly that they did not decay, but they became petrified. Over the years as the continental plates shifted, this area rose up, became dry, and eventually erosion has revealed these petrified logs.

Here we are walking through the Petrified Forest:

(David, Nicholas, Zach, and Mike)

Brooke standing on a petrified stump:

A hundred years ago or so, people were digging out the precious rocks in the wood (crystal, sapphire, quartz) because of the monetary value. So to protect the land, it became a National Park. Even now, each month a whole ton of "souvenirs" are stolen from this park.
You can see the beautiful colors in this stump:

One of the biggest logs we saw:

More stumps along the way:

As we drove another 25 miles through the Petrified Forest, we also drove through The Painted Desert. Beautiful, vibrant striped colors of rock hills:

We heard of some terrible fires in the southern part of Arizona and fortunately we didn't encounter any problems. As you can see the sky wasn't smoky at all.
We would drive a ways and say, "Wow! Look at that!" and then a few minutes later say the same thing!

And then we came across this beautiful red canyon on the side of the road! "Whoa! Where did this come from?! Stop! Take a picture!" was all we could say:

The next morning we arrived at Four Corners, where it's the only place in the USA where 4 states all meet:

The kids were really excited to be in 4 states all at once.

Here is Zach being in 4 states at once:

And Brooke:

The next day we didn't go far to get to Mesa Verde in SW Colorado. About 800 years ago, Native Americans built these homes right under some cliffs. We had to drive up to 7000 feet in elevation to get to them. There were about 100 people living in this dwelling:

Up close:

Mike, Nicholas, and Brooke:

Zach and Brooke:

We were allowed to climb down into this hole:

Down the hole is a small room:

The natives would grind corn with these rocks, like we are demonstrating. Unfortunately, it would also grind the rock into powder, which became apart of their diet. Inadvertantly eating the rock powder with their food caused a lot of tooth problems:

Nicholas, Zach, and me.