Today’s Specials: A Petrified Forest And A Petrified Throat

Coming Clean

While I mentioned it in a way in yesterday’s post, I never declared the fact that I think I caught a cold about a week ago. The symptoms were bad enough to force me to use one of the home covid tests that I brought with me. The plan was to use them before staying and/or visiting the people I know on the road, but I felt bad enough to warrant burning one, and it came out negative. So, I figured that I just caught a cold, which wouldn’t be inconceivable given the fact that I haven’t been sick in three years. It would seem that I’m due a cold.

The past two nights, I’ve woken-up with the worst sore throat I’ve ever had, but I no longer feel sick. On the way out of Santa Fe this morning, I dropped a bunch of money on throat lozenges and cough drops, and have been sucking them down almost continually. If I stop, it’s torture. But like I said, I don’t feel sick in any other way and there’s no way it’s dehydration because I’m drinking over a gallon of water a day.

So, just now, I searched online for “desert air sort throat” and it looks like I may have found the culprit. My days of driving through the desert with my windows down and the moon roof back might be numbered, at least until my return trip. Hopefully, a couple of weeks in San Diego, including some time next to the ocean, will fix me up, because this is pure torture right now.

A Painfully Simple Drive

The trip to Petrified Forest National Park from Santa Fe amounted to about an hour down Route 25 to Albuquerque, followed by three more hours west on Route 40 to the entrance of the park. It was all highway driving, uninspiring and boring as hell. Given how I was feeling, it was agonizing really. The only thing I stopped for was gas and to look for a rattlesnake rattle at the independent gift shops along the way, but I couldn’t find one anywhere.

Petrified Forest National Park (and the Painted Desert)

On our trip west in 1986, my family took the trip through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. It’s essentially a single road with stops along the way highlighting landscapes, ancient pueblos, and, of course, forests of petrified trees. The main thing I wanted to see, however, was something called Newspaper Rock, because I have a photo from the late 1940s featuring my grandmother, father and aunt standing right next to it. When I got to the stop, I pulled-out the Bronica along with its telephoto lens, thinking I could get a similar shot of the rock alone. Unfortunately, due to vandalism, you can’t get anywhere near it. Regardless, I took a photo for the hell of it.

Hiking Without A Trail

For the most part, I play it especially safe when it comes to adventures. This usually includes hiking, but I really wanted to do a desert hike today. In the morning, I looked through the Alltrails app and found a hike titled “Martha’s Butte” and it had me at the name. There were a bunch of reviews mentioning how cool it was and that there were trees along the way and petroglyphs at the butte itself. The hike was only about a 3-mile round trip, and, while it’s in a desert, there was no elevation change and I figured I’d just take a quart of water. Three miles is nothing.

After cruising through the Crystal Forest, I launched the app and kept an eye on the trail marker as I drove down the road. When I got to the spot, there was kind of a space to park along the road, but nothing marking a trail. But, there was Martha’s Butte, clear as day in the distance. Do I do it or chicken-out?

Eventually, I decided to hell with it, packed-up my bag with water, lozenges and my bear spray and headed-out. The course had been downloaded to my phone, so there was no getting lost. The entire trip was along a winding “dry wash”, which is a dry river/stream bed. Along the way there were petrified trees and multi-colored badlands features. The further I got from the road, the creepier it became. There was nothing out there and to say I was hyper vigilant when it came to looking for wild life (e.g. snakes) is an understatement.

The trip out was about 1.25 miles and I spent some time checking-out the petroglyphs that were mentioned in the Alltrails reviews. It did feel pretty good to see some things that the average visitor wasn’t going to see. The return trip was a lot easier and quicker, and I was relieved to find I hadn’t gotten a ticket for parking off the road in a non-marked spot.

A fun part of the hike was what I found right at the end of the hike. It appeared to be a freshly killed and partially eaten jack rabbit, with a glistening pile of poop next to it. My guess is that I spooked whatever was eating it and I’d also wager that whatever it was had its eyes on me the entire time. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to even get that close to take a picture of it. From what I’ve read, it was either a bobcat or a coyote as they’re the only animals that would do that in the area.

While at Martha’s Butte, I’d resisted the urge to leave one of my roaming stones. Leaving stones on the trails in Cuyahoga Valley National Park seems okay to me, because it’s my park and it’s not really some pristine nature reserve or anything. But, I’ve reconsidered leaving any of my stones in places like where I was today. However, I did hide one among the rocks that outlined the parking area along the road where I’d parked.

Ending Day Ten

And, that’s how Day Ten ended. After three days, this trip seemed impossibly long, but now I’m 25% through it and think I need to start living in the moment a little more. It would help if I didn’t feel like complete shit. Hopefully, keeping the windows up while I drive and taking some steaming showers will help with that.