10-07-09

It was a pleasant drive to the Petrified Forest, about an hour form the rest stop that I slept at.
Interstate 40 runs along with the historic Route 66. There are a lot of cool 50’s themed shops and restaurants, some new, some original, some closed and deteriorating.
There are many great pieces of petrified wood lying on the ground in Petrified Forest National Park, ranging from small stone size fragments to full size trees. It is heavy and has a hardness of 7 out of 10 on the hardness scale. One woman even picked up a piece and pronounced that it is indeed heavy. Later I joked next to a huge piece, “I could pick up that one, but I don’t want to disturb the park”.
I drove from site to site and walked along the trails. It was a hot day, but very windy. I almost felt like I had the flu as I had hot and cold flashes.
Usually I’m barefoot, or wearing flip flops which make my “feet on hallowed ground” pictures easy to take. Due to the sometimes cold temperature I had on socks and shoes. I had to get a picture of my foot with petrified wood, so I took of a shoe and sock. A woman walked by and I explained, “I know its sill, but I have to get a picture with my foot”. She said, “I understand, I have a dinosaur”. Later down the trail I caught her taking a picture of a petrified log with her little plastic dinosaur standing on it.
I wandered through the park for hours, then got back on Interstate 40 and followed Route 66 off and on into New Mexico.
I made it to my goal of Albuquerque and found the Wal Mart parking lot that I planned to call home for perhaps two nights. I used to be a Wal Mart boycotter, but now when I’m driving late into the night and looking for a place to sleep when I see the sign it’s like nirvana on the horizon.