Brins Mesa Loop

Hiking amongst the red rocks. Why are they red? Iron oxide of course.

Ready for 8-mile hike, Sedona

Mobile lodging for 2012 tour of USA National Parks. The combination Mercedes & Winnebago is slightly larger than the Mercedes Van, but inside it's spacious, and after the trail each night feels like checking into the Ritz. Great way to get to the hiking trails.

Mural by Hopi artist Kabotie in Painted Desert Inn

Painted Desert Inn Natl Landmark

Looking over the Painted Desert, this Pueblo Revival-style structure was renovated by CCC in the 1930s.

Petrified Forest National Park

225 million years is about the time it takes to turn large trees into stone, uplift, and expose them through erosion. To create the petrified forest, first there was a sub-tropical forest with dinosaur-like crocodiles hunting through the jungle. Before tectonic changes and the split of land masses, this area would have actually been as far south as Panama. There was a flood and massive trees sunk to the bottom of a floodplain. Covered by sand and ash, the logs did not decay and instead, with silica-laden groundwater, crystalized into quartz. Other colorful crystal patterns came from iron and other minerals. Polished into beautiful pieces, the petrified wood was highly sought after until 1906 when Theodore Roosevelt set aside protected stands of the forest.
Fyi - the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Microscopic forms of life appeared about two billion years ago. These trees date to the Triassic period around the age of dinosaurs so they are still relatively young!

Salt River Canyon white water

95 mi east of Phoenix is the Salt River Canyon for a 10-mile journey on inflatable rafts down the river, an exhilarating ride over Class III rapids with names like "Maytag". The river serves as the border between two different groups of Apache, and some sacred lands by the river are strictly off limits. A Swainson's hawk circled above.

Punch and Judy

Hike up to the Heart of Rocks loop in Chiricahua to see the rock version of these puppets and other fantastic rocks.

Chiricahua National Monument

Surreal rock pinnacles mark the trails on this southeastern Arizona sky island. They were caused by the gradual erosion of rhyolite (like granite) uplifted from volcanic eruptions 27 million years ago.

View from Fairbank

Fairbank is a hot and dusty historical town with the remnants of a stagecoach stop, and support for twenty-mule teams carrying iron ore rock from which silver was extracted in the mill. When underwater floods essentially stopped the further extraction of minerals in nearby Tombstone around the turn of the last century, the town was deserted. Its crumbling lumber remains strewn about except for the school house restored by the conservation group. We hiked along the San Pedro River catching glimpses of the brilliantly colored vermillion flycatcher and two white-tailed deer.

Wyatt Earp at OK Corral, Tombstone

Shortly before the gunfight that would define this short-lived boomtown for its vigilante justice, Wyatt Earp and his immodest daughter, exit stage right. Later Wyatt and his deputized brothers killed three men, with whom they were feuding, in cold blood. I know because I saw them do it with cap guns.