In this country everything is big.  The rocks tower above us and defy climbing.  The mountains block the sky and place us like ants in a tunnel.  Washes are jagged clefts, dug deep by flash floods, but generally dry except for monsoon season.  What a haughty sight!  As if man was a mere speck, next to nothing in the scheme of things.  Even the boys were quiet as we rode through, awestruck by the sheer immensity of the landscape.  In Ohio everything is progressive; creeks progress to rivers, then to lakes.  Meadows progress to woods, then to forests.  Flatland rolls into hills, then to foothills, then to mountains.  In Arizona, everything is stark.  Flatland is so flat you can see for miles and miles.  Then suddenly a mountain just juts straight up out of the sand.  They look huge because they often stand so alone.  Flora is generally sparse, and often appears in the strangest locations where you would think nothing could grow.

   We passed from that wind-chiseled panorama into an area that at first seemed depressing.  The overriding color was gray; mounds of broken rock and grit, hills striated with brown and gray and glistening white.  This changed as we drove deeper into the Painted Desert, which is part of the Petrified Forest region that covers northern Arizona from the New Mexico border all the way to the Grand Canyon.  It is a protected wilderness area under the 1964 Wilderness Act of Congress, which recognizes it as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”.  And what an area!  This is an archaeologist’s paradise.  Layers of sedimentary rock full of fossils; red, orange, and brown sandstone; mineral deposits of iron ore, copper, silver, and manganese that show as blues, greens, and purples; volcanic residue that adds ash, lava rock, basalt, flint, and beautiful geodes.

   We found petrified wood; wood that has fossilized into rock of extraordinary beauty and clarity.  Some fit in the palm of your hand, and others chunks of logs that looked like someone with a machete had been cheerfully lopping away. There is a place called Onyx Bridge, which is a whole petrified log.  Both ends are buried in the rock on either side, while the middle spans a dry wash.  To see photos of this magnificent area, go to Wilderness ; no mere words can do it justice.

   This area is high desert.  It is barren and windswept and forbidding.  Holbrook and Winslow, the two main towns in this region, are both on historic Route 66 and are both proud of being very western.  Their main claim to fame seem to be the history of the Arizona Rangers, first organized here by capturing or killing off most of the Hashknife Outfit, a group of cowpunchers who did a lot more punching, thieving and killing than working.  The second claim to fame is Greenthread, an herb that grows wild here.  It is one of the few native plants we’ve found that doesn’t stick you, prick you, or kill you somehow.  Navaho and Hopi Indians harvest and sell it, claiming it has medicinal properties that purify blood, lower blood pressure, cure stomach cramps, and aid kidney and digestive functions.  Since there is some scientific research beginning to back up their claims, the herb is getting pretty popular.  It is sold in bundles or looseleaf under the names of Greenthread Tea, Hopi Tea, or Navaho Tea, depending on where you buy it.  Neither of these claims hold the interest of little boys, however, and before long they are ready to see something besides rocks and sky.

***

Sources:  Mostly my memories, but also:
http://www.winslowarizona.org/Visiting.htm
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/AZ-Mainpage.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winslow%2C_Arizona

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http://www.authspot.com/Biographies/Moving-West-2-The-Saga-of-One-American-Family.525303

http://www.authspot.com/Biographies/Moving-West-Part-Three-The-Saga-of-One-American-Family.572951

http://www.picable.com/Places/Sea/Long-Lake-Arizona.520489

http://www.picable.com/World/Continents/North-America/The-Stately-Elk.520491