Painted Desert and Petrified Forest

After one quick stop in Albuquerque, we left New Mexico and headed into Arizona.  Our first stay in Arizona was in Holbrook.  On our way to our RV park we drove through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park.

The Painted Desert was very beautiful, but I think everyone’s favourite thing to see at this stop was the Petrified Forest.  It was so neat to see a log lying where it fell so long ago that it has turned to stone.  You can still see the rings in the tree and the bark on the outside, but it is also a rock.  So very cool.

We have had some bad luck with our truck and trailer lately, but it was here in Holbrook Arizona that we ran into a mishap of another kind…The kids were outside taking turns using Haydn’s rollerblades when Ada fell and landed on her wrist.  When we heard her screams coming from across the road, we knew it was pretty bad and we would need to take her somewhere to get an xray done.  Luckily Eric’s work covers our whole family in case of an emergency while we are travelling.  Unfortunately we were sort of in the middle of nowhere.  So Ada and I ended up having to drive all over looking for a clinic that could do an xray and also took our insurance.  Eventually we found a place and xrays were taken.  Turns out she had broken her wrist.  The doctor at the clinic said that they were not able to put a cast on until the swelling had gone down, which is usually about 1 week after the injury.  They did put a splint on and wrapped up her arm and gave us a cd with a copy of the xrays on it.  We would have to find a doctor in the next town we were going to, to actually put the cast on for us. We found a clinic at our next stop a week later and they were able to put a cast on for her.