2. Tag: Petrified Forest NP

After a short night, I leave relatively early. That's the advantage of jet lag. You get more out of the day.

We continue through Arizona, heading north. The landscape is phenomenal, and the mountain ranges are winding up and down switchbacks. My breakfast burrito tasted good, and thanks to my careful driving, it stayed in.

My first destination is a Walmart, and since they all look the same, I know exactly where everything is. The salespeople are also always really helpful. I forgot my camping cutlery at home and want to counter the plastic madness and buy new ones. They have some too, but made of plastic. Very sensible. Then I'll just buy normal cutlery, without camping.

After filling up my drinks supplies with Gatorade and flavored water, I head across a flat prairie towards the national park. On the map, it always looks like it's just around the corner, but it takes me almost an hour and a half.

The entrance fee is $25, which is quite low for a national park. The ranger then points out that I am not allowed to take any petrified tree parts with me. A comment that I later find funny.

The park may not be as spectacular as many of its big brothers, but its dimensions are also enormous. The play of colors in the individual layers is incredible, and if you want to know more, I can only recommend the Wikipedia entry.

I cross the park from north to south and it takes me about 3 hours. For hikers, it's definitely worth a day's stay. There are signs everywhere telling you to stay on the trail. Given the sighting of a rattlesnake a few hours earlier, that's probably not a bad idea. But the beast was gone before I could take a photo.

As I leave the park, I see a museum and a sign saying that you can get petrified tree parts for free. It might not be a bad idea if the nice person at the beginning said that right away. Because I have seen people pocketing some. Funnily enough, someone then sells the stuff for money a few hundred meters away. I don't really like this business idea. Even several kilometers after leaving the park, you can see petrified parts lying around everywhere that people want to make money off of. Despite all my love for nature, I think that's unnecessary clutter.

It takes me two hours to get to Flagstaff, where I'm staying overnight today. Two relatively boring hours on the interstate. It only gets interesting again when I get to Flagstaff, because the mountains there still have snow. The last time I was here, it was March and there was a lot more snow. Arizona is such a state full of contrasts.

My accommodation, the Relax Inn, turns out to be a significant improvement on my last night. The room is very modern and not everything is so shabby. And it only costs ten dollars more. Well, yesterday at 10:30 in the morning I didn't care.

I visit Panda Express, a Chinese fast food chain, and since a side dish isn't ready yet, he wants to know my name so he can call me. "Wolfgang" causes delight, as it often does. They still think the name is cool. My German friends could take a lesson from that.

Since my media player has stopped working, I drive to the local Walmart. They know less than anything and send me to Best Buy. There, 5 minutes before closing time, I buy a Roku, but after exactly 3 minutes it joins its German brother and also stops working. It seems it's not meant to be.

Tomorrow I have to hang around here until 10:00 am, then the shop opens again and I will hopefully get my expenses back. The motto of the day is: don't waste your energy on worldly things like streaming series via media player. Accept that it's not meant to be and read a book instead. Damnit.