Petrified Forest National Park, day two
Yet again, I was up at 5:30 in the morning in an effort to catch a nice sunrise, and yet again, it was marginal at best. Even though sunrises haven't worked out as well as I had hoped, the rest of the day has been beautiful, mid-70s in the daytime, 40s at night, and that's what's continuing to show up in the 10-day forecast.
Yesterday I mentioned staying in the Petrified Forest National Park overnight, which is something I would love to do, because the sunsets in some of the Park areas must be spectacular. But the Park makes it particularly difficult, maybe to keep a lot of people from doing it, or it might require more effort from the government employees who work here. Because the way it is now, the park closes at 5:30 PM, so in theory, all the park employees can go home because the park should be empty.
To stay overnight, you have to go to the park headquarters and request a free overnight Park pass. But that pass does not allow you access to the full Park; you're only allowed to be in certain areas of the park. So you have to drive to the areas that you're allowed to stay overnight, park your car, and walk out in the desert for a minimum of half a mile, where you can then set up a camp and spend the night.
Now, for relatively young people, that sounds doable, but when you've got both feet firmly planted in geezerhood, carrying enough stuff on your back to survive eating and sleeping on the ground, how many people, who are pushing 80, like me, would want to do that, and who would still own enough backpacking gear to comfortably pull off a camping trip like that?
And I wish someone would explain to me what the difference would be to the precious Petrified Forest between me parked beside the road in the park and sleeping in my little camper. And the other folks parked beside the road, sleeping in the dirt half a mile away? I can think of one big difference, they're peeing on their precious desert.... And I'm not.
Theboondork
I visited the little Museum at the Petrified Forest National Park, and saw skeletal representations of some of the animals that used to live here 50 gazillion jillion years ago. And if there's anything I learned, it was this.... If they find one toenail of a critter that died back then, they can tell exactly how he looked, how he lived, and what he had for breakfast.
The 3 1/2 foot skull of a crocagator that lived in this desert back before I was born. This toothy critter would eat anything he could catch, cowboys, Indians, rap singers....
5:30 in the morning, and I'm already up waiting for the sunrise
These low hills are in the Petrified Forest National Park, but they're close enough that they're part of my view.
Sunrise this morning. It was great to see a sunrise that wasn't blocked by trees.
Last night's sunset was really nice. The gate you can see in the background is the gate for the Petrified Forest National Park.