For the Beauty of the Earth

Rali: When I was in sixth grade I wrote a paper about the Petrified Forrest. I have been secretly wishing to go there ever since.  Today was my lucky day! Several people we have met on our travels have told us that the Petrified Forest isn't worth it, so my hopes weren't very high. I knew that the trees don't stand on end like a forest. I also knew that the vast expanses that we have been traveling through would likely be in the Petrified Forest as well and the rockified trees would be far apart, and they were. Since we had been traveling through the Painted Desert for days and I knew that, in 1932, 53,000 acres of the Painted Desert were added to the Petrified Desert before it was made a national park in 1962 (by  President Dwight D. Eisenhower), I suspected that much of our time in the Petrified Forest national park would include time in the Painted Desert, and I was right. I knew that all the colors in the mountains were from different minerals and how much oxidation happened over years. Like rings in a tree, the painted desert reflects its age in the sediment, although some parts have been disturbed by the shifting of tectonic plates from the time of Pangea. What I didn't know was that this part of Arizona had been closer to the equator before the shifting of the continents. 


Despite my deep affection for rocks and trees and tree rocks, I could not recall how petrified trees were formed.  




I was reminded by the ranger and the video at the start that minerals including silica dissolved from volcanic ash and absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands and millions of years crystalizing and replacing the organic material of the trees with crystalized minerals over time. 

What sparked my imagination as a child did not disappoint today. I was reminded that this earth has been around for much longer than we have and will likely continue long after humans are gone. That may sound depressing to some, but to me, the idea that life is much more adaptive and perseverant than I am at times is a comfort. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It ain't over till it's over

Image
 We are still on Sabbatical but we are home in Dedham. I have missed our town but have come home to quite a mess. Backed up sewage in the basement, rotted-out kitchen flooring, and a messy house. I always like to clean things before I leave but we left the dogs here and work has been going on in the house. Alas, nothing could be done but plug away at a long to-do list. I wonder if living in the pop-up would be a preferred life for me. The giant parsonage feels so overwhelming sometimes, where the pop-up you just sweep a little floor and you are often done. Thank goodness I have more help with the parsonage :) Once we were nearing the end of the trip I couldn't wait to get home. I did get the norovirus in the last few days so that may have helped me want to get home- it isn't easy being sick on the road. As you might also remember I got covid after our January trip to Florida so perhaps home is where I want to be sick? Or home is where I can tick off my to-do lists.  My heart i...
Read more

Washington, D.C.

Image
This past Friday-Tuesday were the first few days of our cross-country adventure!  First stop = Quakertown, PA, where we enjoyed wonderful time with lots of family and friends.  PA feels more and more like home  each time we visit . . . perhaps something we should pay attention to!  Special shoutout to my brother Keith who cooked up a yummy dinner and let 17 family  members  invade his house and flop around on his new couch.  We will, for sure, seek out his services again.  Five stars!  We even saw some of our VT lake neighbors in their PA habitat!  :) Yesterday, we headed south.  After locating the house in which Rali and her family lived for a few of her elementary school years, we stopped at the Valley Forge National Park.  Rali remembers going there at the age of 8 or 9!  It was blustery cold as the wind whipped over the hill, and this deepened our reflection and appreciation of what it must have been like for the ...
Read more

South Dakota

Image
4/21/23:  I write from a Super 8, where we'll be for two nights, after staying in a hotel last night, too.  This is luxury at its height!  Hot showers that require neither inserting quarters every 3 minutes nor walking 100 yards from the camper to the campground bathroom...Life is good. Today was a travel day, but tomorrow we'll see Wind Caves National Park, the Crazy Horse Memorial, and Mount Rushmore. 5/10/23: Looks like I neither finished nor published that post.  I can tell you now that all three South Dakota stops were cool.  The Black Hills are sacred lands to a number of Native tribes.  In fact, Wind Caves are believed to be where humans were created.  The Crazy Horse Memorial , conceived of by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear, is very cool.  In addition to a monstrous blasting project that will eventually create the sculpture below coming out of a mountain 6500+ ft above sea level. Here's the progress thus far as seen through some lig...
Read more