I approach a near empty dirt parking lot and a small shack, barely large enough to be a ticket booth. There's a sign saying, “Adventurous Antelope Canyon Photo Tour.” 1) There's probably no way they have a bathroom in that shack, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't have toilet paper, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't let me use it still, and even if they did, I probably wouldn't want to use it after seeing it. 2) The words “photo” and “adventurous” have never been used on an attraction costing only 6$: something's going on here.
Having remembered passing a gas station on the way here, I clench my cheeks and turn around. I need some gas, so that'll be the perfect thing to pay them back with, but I go inside first. There's a sign on the door, “Bathroom is for paying customers only! No Exceptions!” I'm fine with that, but first...the door's locked. The other one is out of order.
Hold strong old boy, you can make it.
I decide to get gas first. The fuel pumps are old though. Like old, old. It takes me a second to realize only 1 type of gas comes out of each pump. The one I pulled up to is super, so I have to back up to get to the regular. All the while, trying to hold it together in my bowels.
Getting to the right pump, I have to...pay inside? You don't have a card reader here? I go inside, lucky there's no line, and ask for 20$ worth. Returning to the pump, it's not working. WHY NOW?! Ah, no digital display to tell me what to do; I had to put the lever up. Finally, it's...WHAT? WHAT? YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!
It is the slowest pumping gas machine I've ever seen in my life. You know how when you're a kid, you'd play hide and go seek and have to count, “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand?” I did that while the gas was pumping, and every one thousand was about 10 cents of gas. After about 12$ worth, the cashier walks outside and says,
“Is it going slow?”
“Yeah.”
“Let it go for about 5 seconds, then try it again.”
I do what he suggest and feel a thud in the handle: it finally goes to normal speed. After getting done, I start to walk inside and he tells me, “Yeah, they do a pressure test every day somewhere in the line, so the very first pump of the day goes slow. After fixing it though, it won't be slow again until tomorrow morning.” I am so lucky to have been part of this experiment.
I go inside to check the bathroom again. Before I can touch the handle,
“You need the bathroom key?”
…a bathroom key.
“Yes, sir.”
The cashier hands me a foot long stick with a key attached to the end. It reminds me of a bathroom pass like you'd have to use in grade school.
Lowering the state of bowel emergency, I start researching the tours. What I find out is the photo tour website connected through Google is not their actual website: if you google the real company name, you'll find the actual website, and see the cheapest tour they have is 46$. Passing on that, I start looking at all the other local tours.
I drove passed a few entry ways headed to photo adventure land, but driving by them again, I see they have some of the jeeps I saw yesterday; there's no way they're 6$, and all the tours I find online are at least 30. Looking at the original website that stated 6$ entry, it says 6$ is for "general admission," so I think I finally figure it out: 6$ of your tour money goes towards the Navajo Parks and Recreation organization, but the only way to get in is still with a tour group, so no matter who you go with, you're going to end up paying a lot more.
That being said, all the reviews still manage to be great and it seems like something the majority of people enjoy. I, however, have a friend named Glen who lives in Moab (for now), and when in Moab, he told us all about a place he thought was better than Antelope Canyon and free called Little Wildhorse Canyon, and Glen knows the outdoors. Expecting I'll one day go back to Moab for a visit, and having probably seen a lot more interesting rocks than most of the people who reviewed Antelope Canyon, I decide the cost isn't worth it for me and head to my next destination: the Painted Desert.
The Painted Desert is a whole region in Arizona, so I don't know exactly where I should go, but my GPS seems to have an idea. A couple hours later, in the middle of nowhere again, I'm told to turn onto a fenced in dirt road, with a big sign saying, "Road Closed," on it. I think about going through anyway, but not only is it 4x4 area, but I see a windmill just over the hill, meaning it's likely someone actually owns this land. The name of the road is also Indian Route 5; I've never been a black person in a white city, but I assume it's somewhat like being a white person in a Native American city, because in Page, I got a few looks. So I decide it could be more trouble than it's worth and skip over it, heading instead straight to Petrified Forest National Park. 40 or so minutes later though, I run across a little stop not on my GPS. It's a place called, "Little Painted Desert." It's a free county park northeast of Winslow, Arizona that seems to have the view I've been looking for:
There's also cows. I'm not sure why cows are at a county park, but it's more animals I've seen now.
Satisfied with having seen the Painted Desert, I continue until I get to Petrified Forest National Park. Entering, I'm asked if I have any rocks or wood with me, such as collection pieces, and am explicitly told not to take any from the park. Reading a pamphlet and seeing signs, it's apparently a major problem here. After seeing a traditional National Park begging crow,...
...I find out why. Petrified wood looks a bit like giant gemstones:
It also reminds me of Gollum biting that fish in Lord of the Rings for some reason, so I'm a bit disgusted by it, but I can see how others would want a piece. The wood is created by being buried under water or sediment capable of absorbing water before it has time to decompose. As water flows through whatever material it's buried under, it flows through the wood as well. Pieces of mineral end up sticking in the pores of the wood, until eventually, the entire piece of wood has been replaced by the minerals. Different minerals produce different colors: the purple bluish areas are produced by manganese oxide, while the reddish areas are created by iron oxide. Technically, this isn't a piece of wood at all: it's a rock disguised as wood.
Most of the wood is in a place called the Crystal Forest, where it's strewn about all over the place. I worry a little bit someone is going to think I'm taking some (they give you forms at the gate you can fill out if you see someone doing that) but want to touch some, so I bend over and knock on a piece: it's definitely petrified - hard as a rock.
This is an area of the park that's been excavated for fossils. Another reason the park doesn't want you taking any rocks or wood is it's been an important source of Triassic era study for years. During the late Triassic period, there was a sudden mass extinction of many species of animals and plants for reasons that are still not completely known. This park is a place where paleontologist, with a park permit, try to learn more about what caused the extinction.
Somehow I didn't know before coming, but the Petrified Forest includes part of the Painted Desert. I could've saved some time if I'd studied ahead on this.
I learn here the Painted Desert is a badlands, which is basically a desert made of clay. What makes clay special is the way it erodes. Its chemical composition was described as a sandwich, where there's rock minerals for the bread and water for the meat, meaning whenever it contacts moisture, it easily absorbs it, making it quickly turn into a mud like material.
Because of this, the hills erode very easily. Up close, they're wrinkly and saggy looking, like the grandparent version of a mountain, from where streams of water and wind have cut through. It's also not uncommon for the flowing water to form a channel into the hill until it creates an outlet further down.
Above is a piece of petrified wood that's preventing the stone below it from eroding completely. It was funny for me to see it here because so many of the other rock structures I'd been seeing lately (e.g. Island in the Sky) were formed by having a softer sediment with a harder sediment on top (which I found out was generally a magnesium infused version of limestone called dolomite), and here it was happening again, but with clay and petrified wood instead.
Here's another place they used to have the same thing, but the clay eventually eroded away and the wood pretty much blew up, so now you can just see pieces of petrified wood scattered down the hill. It happens.
These are conglomerates; they're basically big rocks made by smaller rocks gluing themselves together over time. They look like Bootstrap Bill from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
I'm not sure if you can tell yet, but this park had a LOT of stuff. Pueblo people, like the ones from Mesa Verde, used to live in the area. This park has some drawings they made. Black grit, made of who wants to know what, formed on these rocks over time, and the Puebloans would scrape it off to make art. I liked this one because it looks like the guy who made it did hand art of the chief to make fun of how bossy he was. "Look at me, I chief with big hat," and the artist just smoked herbs in his little hut behind his back.
More painted desert. A sign I read says the sky is so clear in this area, some days you can see the mountains of California.
A unique feature of this National Park is how it has a railway and interstate running through it. It also host a grass covered area of Route 66, which is tracked by the closest row of telephone poles in that picture of the interstate. I'm not completely sure how I feel about said features, but they certainly are unique.
And I suppose now is as good a time as ever to bring up the fact trains are huge here. It started in Colorado, and it's very possible every train I've seen since then is at least 50 carts long. They also will stack 2 tractor trailer style storage containers on each cart at a time, as in the photo, so they're higher than any train I've ever seen as well.
For those who don't know, there's 2 topics I absolutely act like a child over, and that's space and dinosaurs. So while I'm enjoying being in a park so significant to the history of giant dead reptiles, I've been here a while, and...
SONOFABITCH!
Out of nowhere the light comes on. I didn't hit a pothole, I haven't been speeding: hell, I've been going 35 for the past 4 hours. As is my usual tradition, I watch the temperature gauge and worry frantically; I wonder if my pass gets me a discount on being towed out of a National Park. My biggest worry is that this is the timing belt or water pump acting up. This is another one of the problems with life on the road; if a shop doesn't do my car right, I can't just tow it back 4 hours and demand a refund. I decide I just need to get out of here, pull in to a gas station with signal, and figure it out from there.
As I drive, I wait, like the calm before a storm. When's it gonna start overheating? When is the engine going to suddenly stop? But nothing happens. I think...it's alright. I suddenly recall an issue I used to have with the engine light. There's some error that involves an oxygen pollution sensor or something. It used to come on every couple months, and I'd just kept clearing it out, so it might just be that.
I pull into a Pilot gas station and download Torque: it's the app I lost off my phone before I got to Dallas and couldn't remember what it was called until I started searching for it now. It connects to blue tooth ODB II readers to tell you all sorts of information, including check engine errors. It's a great app, but unfortunately not very intuitive on how to read check engine errors, so I have the app, it's connected...and I've still got no idea what's wrong with my car.
Inside the Pilot is a Chester's Chicken. I first started seeing Chester's Chickens in Tennessee and saw so many of them while driving I eventually wanted to try it. So I decide I'll grab some dinner and figure it all out at the Rest Area. Going inside, I discover Chester's Chicken sells egg rolls. It is completely bizarre to me that a fried chicken restaurant, inside a gas station, located in Arizona, feels the need to sell egg rolls; so I buy one. As well as 3 pieces of dark meat, 3 potato wedges, and a roll.
On the road, headed towards a Rest Area, I remember how to make Torque work. It was hard to figure out the first time, too, but you have to use the menu button to pop up options which you then have to select through to ask Torque to read pending errors for you. I always figured that option would be right on the front screen when you open it, but instead there's an accelerometer and 6 blank slidable screens: it's very confusing.
Arriving at the Winslow Rest Area, I'm welcomed by a lovely sign stating, "Rest Area Rules: 1) Rest and relax. This rest area was built for Arizona's highway travelers." Finally, a rule that I can agree to.
I check the engine, and it is, indeed, the pollution error that used to show up so often. It might be something worth looking at, but not until I have a job again, so I clear the error.
And so, I get to taste, for the first time ever, a meal from Chester's Chicken. The first thing I eat is the roll, and wow, I can't believe a gas station restaurant managed to make a perfect roll. I'm normally not a fan of bread, so the fact it's so good amazes me. Next is the egg roll, and again, amazing. It has a peppery taste, something I've never experienced in an egg roll before and a nice change of flavor. The potato wedges, not as great. I'm not a fan of potato wedges as it is, and they use that flaky batter, similar to Checker's fries, everybody seems to love so much and I'll never know why, but the biggest issue is they're stiff. 2 out of 3 isn't bad though, and the part that really matters is next, the chicken. I eat all 3 pieces...
Overdone.
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