valley of dehydration

valley of dehydration
Originally uploaded by barbee.

I had just driven all night while the rest of the fam tried to catch some winks in the car and we arrived at the petrified forest right as it opened. I reall had no idea what to expect. I did have a few small petrified logs at home and knew what that meant, but I was not prepared for what i was to see. I somehow was expecting a forest of standing trees that where petrifed, and by that no.... i don'tmean afraid!:)
what I saw was mind boggling, we wandered around as the morning sun glared on the bright, reflective surface. e ground was so hot, that the asphalt had melted under the car tires. The park was huge! it consisted of vast desert, the "badlands" and miles and miles of petrified wood. The wood has actually turned to stone and you can view so many levels of color. The mountains had covered forests and buried them and as they lay hidden from the outside world, they fossilized and actually crystalized and turned to glorious shades of stone. As the mountains erode they would yeild gifts of stone that would roll down the mountain and split open to show it's slpendor. On the top of the mountains, you can see into the painted desert and seea pleete of outrageous colors. I went down in the basin of the mountains and there felt this overwhlming sense of being surrounded. It's wasn't a bad feeling but more of a feeling of the ancients in the misdt. I simply could not get enough photographs and was running around taking pictures as fast as I could. It soon dawned on me that I was fully clothed in a jacket and hat, as I was pretty sunburned and didn't want to have blisters, and that I was alone. I was ok with that but the fact that I was running and didn't have any water with me, I started to come to my current reality and that was, I was WAY dehydrated and had a long way to go to get back up to the car. I heard voices but no people were there, I felt conversations from the mountains surrounding me. I told myself that regardless of the fact my heart was racing, I was overheated and dehydrated, I simply had to make it back. I started to slow down and focus on my breathing and set my will and determination on destination, CAR! When I did return, nobody in my family knew what was going on with me and Scotty came up to meet me and I literally could not speak, just breathe. I got back to the freestar and ripped off my coverings and poured bottles of cold water on my head and started driking like an enormous dried sponge in a rainstorm. When I finally regained my strength and voice I had to laugh at myself. I was invincable! runniong in the desert???? who the??? what the??? i was a bad ass in the bad lands ;)
well, until i almost passed out. I learned to always have water after that and not be fooled by the dry desert heat, it will sneak up, even on super heros!