VACATION IN WONDERLAND ARIZONA

IN WONDERLAND

ANY persons plan splendid trips to Niagara to see the falls or to giant redwood forests to see the trees. Others plan an Alaskan trip to see ice and snow or to Estes Park to see the tall peaks of the Rockies; while some plan a Mediterranean cruise to Egypt to see the Pyramids. Some persons who like to plan often find it impossible to fulfill their desires to visit distant scenes. For all these folk who are fortunate to visit distant places and those who are unable, why not consider that Arizona contains more marvels and stranger things than many far away lands? Let us first reflect upon the Grand Canyon. Here are also water falls in a titanic canyon far higher than Niagara, water falls that appear insignificant in their gigantic setting, falls that need no artificial colored lights to tint the plunging spray. In this mighty canyon the falling waters, impregnated by minerals, flooded by bright sunbeams, and surrounded by a sea of colored rocks, create their own awe-inspiring beauty.

During the wet seasons there is also a giant falls on the Little Colorado River, east of Cameron, in a dry, rocky country, that is higher than Niagara by twenty feet. One may travel the world over but one will have to return to Arizona's vast romantic land for the matchless attraction-the Grand Canyon.

For pyramids that far outrival Egypt's, observe the prodigious pyramids formed in the depths of this canyon by time and erosion. In addition, they are most beautifully tinted by nature. Here one sees not only pyramids and falls but the vast-est sunken rock garden in the world, a ragged, twisting rent in the earth as wide as eighteen miles, with a chasm over a mile deep, a tremendous gorge that would stretch from New York City to Washington, D. C.

Added to the Grand Canyon's almost unbelievable size and depth, one may see ceaselessly changing prismatic tints in the brilliant sunlight of its ponderous multi-colored walls rivaling the hues of the rainbow. The observer, watching from the rim, will see strange, dreamy shadow designs from its broken mountains, mysterious shadows that move eternally and silently within the torn abysmal depths like vast pools of strange legendary lands. The tug it gives the heart and the mind by its sublimity and majesty will send one away better for having viewed its infinite grandeur, and one will not regret so much havingbeen unable to visit the Holy Land or Egypt.

After this, if it requires a man-made pyramid to attract the traveler, a visit to Boulder Dam, farther down the Colorado from the Grand Canyon, will meet with every expectation. Here a great mass of concrete and steel, far greater than the greatest pyramid, is jammed into a ponderous form in a deep gorge which holds back a small Mediterranean Sea with a shore line of over 500 miles and with as salubrious a climate as that of the Nile Valley.

Another amazing wonder in Arizona is a forest without a single standing shading tree, a forest devoid of leaves and water, with trees thousands of years older than the giant redwoods. This forest is located in a dry, desert, rocky wilderness, with trees broken and ruined, lying in great confusion over the land, but hardened mineral tree trunks, upward to eight feet in thickness, displaying shades of the spectrum with endless designs, marvelous to see. Jeweled remains that are replicas of huge trees once living giants. Here is a rare forest petrified and preserved for all time, unlike any other forest that one will see though he travel far and wide.

As inspiring a sight as one will witness anywhere, a land where rainbows are born, is the famous Painted Desert, partly located within the northern boundaries of the Petrified Forest National Monument. This silent, barren land, with its diverse layers of stained rocks and sands, is a delightful spectacle to behold, especially in the hush of the enchanted evening hour, when the great sun artist sprays his jeweled tangent rays over the scene and every color of the rainbow shifts and dances and mingles with the strangely moving shadows of pale lavenders which change to blues and finally to the most intriguing purples, as night approaches. No distant land, regardless of where one may plan to go, can produce such a delightful and colorful sight. Now, everyone abhors an unsightly pock mark that disfigures the face, but Arizona proudly boasts of a gigantic pock mark where a frightful meteor from the heavenly void struck the bare, rocky desert plateau with such terrific force that it disfigured the landscape over a wide area. Indeed, no other land can show the tomb of a visitor from outer space, and nowhere will one find any more intriguing place for speculation. To see this crater, thirty-five miles east and four miles south of the National highway from Flagstaff, is like a visit to the moon to gaze on one of its craters.

It is over 500 feet deep and is almost a mile across.

Arizona is a remarkable land in which to plan a vacation. Near Cameron, in a part of the Painted Desert land, the traveler may see monstrous fossilized tracks of extinct dinosaurs, remains of trampling feet in reddish muck, now hardened sandstones, reminders of the time when these gigantic animals roamed over ancient Arizona milleniums ago. Another awe-inspiring sight is the region of extinct volcanic flow, huge coalblack and burned red cinder heaps, deep, bare craters like caldrons of giants, and nearby, ice caves beneath the cold lava flows. This region is easily visited at the foot of the tall San Francisco Peaks, northeast of Flagstaff, all remains of the last geological age when Arizona shook in convulsing rage and vomited molten magma over a wide area.

If one wants to see the touch of ancient man's hands that built homes, escarpmented forts, long before there was an America or Columbus, he should see the ruins about Kayenta or Wupatki near Flagstaff or Montezuma's Castle National Monument, one of the finest preserved cliff ruins in America. True, one will not inspect Dorian or Corinthian architectural designs in these structures, but one will see evidence of primitive man's struggle with stark realties in building a home in a wilderness with only his hands and stone tools.

There is also a wild lonely sullen scenic wonder in northeastern Arizona reached via Holbrook and through the Petrified Forest, than north to Ganado and Chin Lee. It is Canyon de Chelly with its 1100 foot precipitous brown sandstone walls, gracefully etched into magnificent monuments by the fingers of time and (Continued on Page 31)