May 6, Another WOW day - Escalante

It is so hard to explain with words the beauty of this place, we just keep going around and "ooing" and "awing" about how special, amazing, unbelievable. That 250 million years ago that this was covered by ocean, and that this area was down at the equator. That 50 million years ago the continental plates pushed towards each other and formed these mountains. That a volcano erupted and spread mud and ash and rocks all over where we are walking. That trees were covered and buried and under the debris for thousands and thousand of years. That there was no oxygen so the trees were enclosed, and that water dripped down through all the layers and minerals gave colour to the wood. And that the wind and rain has shaped this landscape and uncovered the many layers and now is a showcase for the most amazing petrified wood, and so amazing that we are standing here in the middle of these 250 million years of history. We stand on top of five million tons of uncovered petrifried wood. We touch it, brush sand away, revealing even more colours. We stand on history.   And this is just a micro version of what is there.

That there are dinosaur tracks, we can try to grasp the colours of the petrified wood. That we can appreciate the gnarly juniper trees, see how they have tried to survive in this windy climate, with almost no roots, some ending as sculptural black skeletons, others look like thet need paliative care, others young, growing out of the small crevasses in the rocks, that have been formed by pressure, deepened by water, enlarged by ice.
As soon as one little plant dares to grow, it gives life to other plants around it, composting branches, seeds, needles, cones, and with time there other plants join the first plant and we stand there, looking, appreciating, feeling us so small in this huge old world.

I did forget the muffins, but Kathi didn't. She remembered to remind me of that several times.

We went home and had lunch, then drove in a thunderstorm and rain to Kiva Koffeehouse, an amazing cafe in the middle of the red rock canyons.

In the afternoon, Barb drove out to Devil's Garden, more on that later.