Things that grow out of the soil...: day 3 (bisti de-na-zin wilderness)

the next morning, we woke up for the last time in gallup. we ate breakfast at the red lion for the last time and then packed up our things and hit the road.

but before we hit the road, we needed to take a few pictures of some more prairie dogs. they're so cute.

we left gallup and headed towards the bisti / de-na-zin wilderness area. once we got off the highway, we drove along a dirt road for quite awhile.

on that drive, we saw lots of cool birds, including the brown-headed cowbird, lots of loggerhead shrikes, and lots of horned larks! we had just been saying recently how we'd love to see a horned lark.

we got to a little parking lot and headed out into the bisti part of the wilderness area.

it was a true badlands area. the rocks were other worldly.

there was so much petrified wood in the bisti area. this log is petrified!

the mounds of earth were so cool. it was fun to hike down and and around them on the ground level but also to hike on top of them.

looking at petrified wood.

some hoodoos.

you know we love the wood-rock.

here is a cool series of pictures that b took. they start with him looking down at the ground right in front of him and then it moves out from there.

we found a little cave that we went into.

the amazing thing about this picture is that it is only by the miracle of flash photography that we can see the inside of the cave so well. when we were in it, it was so much darker than this for us.

then we found one of the mother loads. so much petrified wood--that all looked so fresh and real. some of it could actually give you splinters!

we couldn't get over how wood-like all of the wood looked.

good grief!

you can't tell me that doesn't look like something that you wouldn't throw on your fire. it doesn't look like rock at all.

here are some views from up on top of the mounds.

we found some more great wood. look at that stump!

that's so real looking.

look at these stumps--several large stumps all right next to each other.

i just couldn't get over how cool it all was.

would you call that rock?!

handsome, handsome b.

some white poop. maybe from a coyote.

we hiked up to the top of the mounds and then struggled to figure out how to get down. eventually we found a way that wouldn't lead to a sure and sudden death. once down, we walked through this dry wash.

this was the area we had originally tried to down at. it may not look difficult, but it was. definitely not safe--we found another way down.

so much fossilized wood.

another cave!

what beautiful mounds.

i just love it.

here's a fun series of me sliding down the steep part of a mound.

i made some fun faces!

we discovered these pods on the ground. they were small and so intricate.

a lovely flower.

desert daisies. i've always loved daisies.

an animal print.

we then got back in the car and headed over to the de-na-zin part of the wilderness area. the bisti side was so amazing, we were sure the de-na-zin would be cool too (in fact, our guidebook said it was supposed to be better).

just outside the de-na-zin area, we stopped at this salty water area to look at birds. there were a few adult killdeers with their babies. killdeers are very protective of their young. i never try to bother birds, but it is interesting to see them spread out their tail feather and wing feathers to try to scare off would-be predators. we weren't the predators in this case--there were other birds who the killdeer didn't like hanging around.

we made it to the de-na-zin entrance only to be very sadly greeted by a sign telling us you couldn't collect petrified wood from anywhere in the bisti / de-na-zin area. we had collected some small pieces from the bisti area and planned to bring them home (since there wasn't a sign there about not collecting). we had been so stoked about the pieces we had collected. but, as the good people we are, we left our pieces inside the de-na-zin area--you'll see that later on in this post.

a bit sadly, we headed off into the de-na-zin wilderness.

b took lots of cool pictures of our shadows on the badlands below us.

i love all of these shots.

although this part of the wilderness was similar in some ways to the bisti side, it was strikingly different. the mounds were different colors and shapes, and there was no petrified wood. at least none we saw.