A Day On The Moon Or?

 I had announced it yesterday. Today was our "Discovery Day", and we moved to the moon - well almost. But you be the judge. But first I have to say that the "moon section" will have to be spread over two postings. Too many pictures were snapped (Bea alone had over 300) while my Cell showed just 32% charge and went empty after a few hours only. (Had forgotten the charger in the rig) So many of the pics here have come from Bea's NIKON. 

Pretty futil to write a caption under every picture. But all of today's images are from the Petrified Forest NAT'L PARK.

Common Ravens were soaring high but also low. A couple of them we could say HELLO to.

Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 346 square miles (900 square kilometers), encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The park's headquarters is about 26 miles (42 km) east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 (I-40), which parallels the BNSF Railway's Southern Transcon, the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. The site, the northern part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962.



The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the park's rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind and water. In addition to petrified logs, fossils found in the park have included Late Triassic ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and many other plants as well as fauna including giant reptiles called phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the park's fossils since the early 20th century.