One could think that it was an invention of J.K. Rowling to petrify people with a spell. Well, may be so, but if you drive from Albuquerque West to Arizona, you will notice that Petrifying existed long before Harry Potter. In the Petrified Forest National Park in the desert of Arizona exists a whole forest of petrified trees, only here it's not magic that took effect, but time.
Ok, Forest might be a little exaggerated, it's more like a desert of fallen and broken trees. But anyway, what looks like dead wood here, actually isn't... 225 Million years ago this was a tree which then was covered by sediments of volcanic ash. Containing silica, quartz crystals replaced the wood. Later (60 Million years ago) tectonic movements lifted the Colorado Plateau up and revealed the Petrified Forest.
In this desert, many smaller and bigger parts of petrified trees can be found...
In the late 19th century, when the area wasn't a National Park yet, many people came by the Route 66 and stopped to see the petrified wood. Unfortunately they didn't only look, but also took away so many stones as souvenirs that soon there wasn't much left. Today it is strictly prohibited to take away petrified wood, but despite penalties, there is stolen 1 ton of petrified wood each month.
So hurry up to visit the place before it's all gone!^^
After our stop at the Forest we drove on on our Countryroad:
This time it will bring us to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and the City of Angels, so keep reading, the Best of the Roadtrip will be here soon!
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