OK, maybe I exaggerated a little bit, but it was seriously a welcome break from the incredibly monotonous geography of Texas. The first campsite that we stopped at was set next to a lake in the middle of a desert. It was a pretty cool landscape. Of course, this was only a night stop in the beginning of our trip, but there was one nice thing about this campsite: we had electricity. :)
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The focus of our second day was the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. All of our sights for that day were located in Petrified Forest National Park in Eastern Arizona.
The painted desert gets its name from the appearance of the rocks in what is called the Chinle Formation. The rock varies from red to white and every color in between. The layers differentiate because of past volcanic eruptions, which provide the white volcanic ash in between the red siltstone and shale. All of these layers erode fairly easily, forming what is called the badlands topography. The combination of these factors creates this beautiful landscape.
The south end of the National Park contains the majority of the petrified wood. These old colorful trees are scattered throughout the landscape at many different places. In order for wood to crystallize and petrify, it needs a high concentration of Silica, which is contained in the layers of volcanic ash. Once again, the petrified wood was a really cool sight to see.
This was when I really started to get into all of the science, which I found fascinating. During pretty much every stop, I was the one reading every board and ogling over all of the amazing sights.
After stopping here, we traveled a few hours to our second campsite. And as I laid my head down to sleep, I got to look at all of the stars out of my window. I could actually see stars. Thousands of them, actually.
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During the trip, I read several books at the same time (a daunting task, I know). The three books I read were The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, and Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology by Eugene Peterson. I only got about halfway through each of these books, but so far, each of these books has been phenomenal. Bonhoeffer was a new author for me; one of my Bible professors introduced him to me in a Bible class last semester. I had read Rob Bell before, but decided to reread his most popular book once more. In the fall of 2011, I had read a book by Eugene Peterson, and really enjoyed it, so I decided to read another book of his.
Throughout the rest of my blog posts, I will tell you a little bit about each of the books I read. Before I do that though, I need to tell you about a common thread through all of them that surprised me. Each of these authors, in their own contexts, are not satisfied with Christianity as simply a system of beliefs. Sure, they value belief and doctrine, but according them, the doctrine found in scripture is meant to shape and guide our lives. In other words, faith without works is dead. Belief and obedience go hand in hand. Christianity should lead us to a revolutionary and transforming way of life. As I read these authors simultaneously, I found this truth quite refreshing.
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So now, time for a little geology lesson. I thought this stuff was fascinating, and I hope to explain it as simply as possible. The reason why there are all of these cool things in Arizona and Utah is because of the Colorado Plateau. Sometime in the past, this vast region of land was uplifted due to plate tectonics. It is partially because of this that there are so many natural wonders in this region.
In this region, many rock layers are exposed in different parts of the region due to erosion and other natural forces. As I continue in my account, you will recognize different layers depending on the elevation we are in. For this first stop in the painted desert, we were in the Chinle formation, which you can see here in the many layers of the grand staircase.
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