If you have never been to northern New Mexico and Arizona I suggest you put it on your agenda. This truly is amazing country. Petrified Forest, Taos cliff dwellings, petroglyph's, fossils, Indian reservations, art, Navajo rugs, ghost towns...the list goes on. Here we are at the Petrified Forest. As it was explained to us by a guide, some 230 million years ago this was a vast forest, the area became flooded, the trees died, sank to the bottom and because they were quickly covered with mud they were preserved. Over millennia, minerals replaced the cells of the wood and it became fossilized. There is petrified wood in all 50 states, it is very hard, as hard as quartz, the various colors in the wood are caused by the different minerals. Each year it is estimated that several tons of it are stolen from the Petrified Forest National Park even though there are severe fines if you are caught. Susan caught a kid attempting to put a small piece in his pocket and threatened him with dire consequences if he did..... Nobody messes with Susan!

We joined a guided tour and were treated to quite a display of petroglyph's. No one seems to know exactly when they were created, who created them, or what they mean other than that that they were made a long time ago by the ancestors of the Navajo and Hopi tribes.

Oh, I almost forgot. Among the many wonders of this vast wilderness are Aliens from outer space. We were fortunate to get a picture of one of their interstellar vessels. Amazing how you cannot see them with the naked eye but a camera will reveal them from time to time. See if you can figure out which planet or star system this one is from? Where is Capt Kirk when we need him?