Yesterday, we finally had a day with a little bit of cloud drama - the clouds almost always make the beautiful scenery more, well, beautiful. We headed back into the Petrified Forest National Park where we saw our best color yet.
We decided to make it a short day and head home instead of hiking, but we did stop in one of the iconic shops you see all along I-40. Joani found herself the perfect souvenir - a colorful piece of petrified wood small enough to fit in her single potted plant - and it was free!
Most roadside shops have a bucket of small pieces of petrified wood (gathered on private land) that are free (to entice you to stop). Living in an RV, small is good. It is so tempting to pick up a small sample while in the National Park, but don't do it - just outside the park, they will give it to you.
Today, the threatening rain clouds prompted another quick drive into the park to capture yet another kind of light.
This may look risky to hike in, but we learned early on that desert rains seldom reach the ground in May.
We could see rain all around us, but it did not seem like the rain made it to the ground. The Ranger at the park entrance assured us the most we would feel would be a few drops. He had me convinced, so we started the 2+ mile hike to the Agate House.
Agate House was an eight-room pueblo believed to be built about 1,000 years ago.
Agate house was excavated in the 1930s and a couple rooms were reconstructed. Hundreds of similar structures (foundations surrounded by rubble) have been found throughout the park.
Firepits were found in two of the rooms.
The color range is a result of quartz crystals contaminated with iron, manganese, copper, cobalt, carbon, and chromium.
The sun peeked through the clouds at the right time for a shadow wave against a hillside littered with colorful petrified wood.
The Long Logs trail loop branched off from the Agate House trail to add another half mile to our hike. The clouds were still threatening rain, but the cool breeze (maybe I should have said wind) made the hiking very pleasant.
The Ranger called it - we felt a few drops, but never had to worry about the cameras getting wet.
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