License to Thrill by Dan Gutman Page B

he continued on I-40 West.
    Mrs. McDonald dropped her New Mexico guidebook in the trash and opened a new one— Arizona Arisin’ . She flipped through the introduction. . . .
    â€œLet’s see . . . soaring mountains . . . red-walled canyons . . . vast deserts . . . ,” she mumbled. “Hey, did you guys know that Arizona has more mountains than Switzerland and more golf courses than Scotland?”
    â€œI suppose you’re going to tell us about all the oddball museums and weird stuff there is to see here, huh, Mom?” asked Coke.
    â€œWell, the official state neckwear is the bolo tie,” Mrs. McDonald said. “In fact, there’s a bolo tie museum close to Phoenix.”
    â€œPlease say we don’t have to go there,” Pep begged from the backseat. “Please?”
    â€œYou guys are no fun,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Hey, you want to go to London Bridge?”
    â€œIsn’t London Bridge in London ?” asked Coke.
    Actually, it is and it isn’t. There are several London Bridges. But one of them was sinking into the ThamesRiver so England put it up for sale in 1967. An American bought it, and he had all 10,246 bricks shipped to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to be reassembled there.
    â€œLondon Bridge is on the other side of the state, five hours from here,” said Mrs. McDonald.
    â€œI’m not driving five hours to see a bridge ,” said Dr. McDonald. “I want to see natural beauty. I want to see the Grand Canyon, the red sandstone at Sedona, Monument Valley . . .”
    Forty minutes after crossing the state line, they were still arguing about what to see in Arizona. That’s when they came to this sign. . . .

    Dr. McDonald pulled into the parking lot at the visitors’ center. It was at least a hundred degrees outside, and Mrs. McDonald made sure everyonehad a bottle of water and was covered by sunglasses, hats, and sunscreen. A park ranger was just starting a short walking tour, so the McDonalds rushed to catch up.
    The Petrified Forest isn’t a “forest” in the common use of the word. It’s more of a rock garden, with spectacular colors. That’s why part of the Petrified Forest is called the Painted Desert.
    â€œI don’t get it,” Pep said to the ranger. “If this is a forest, where are the trees?”
    â€œWe get that question all the time,” said the ranger, a tall man with blond hair. “Usually when a tree falls, it decays over time. But these trees fell into rivers and were buried in water, minerals, and volcanic ash. So they remained intact and became fossilized. That is, they turned to stone. Some of them are two hundred and twenty-five million years old.”
    Mrs. McDonald took some notes for Amazing but True. After a short walk, the ranger stopped and knelt down to point out a flat rock that had a picture of an eye carved into it.
    â€œGraffiti?” somebody asked.
    â€œYou might say that,” said the ranger. “These pictures are called petroglyphs. Prehistoric people made them over eight thousand years ago.”
    Everyone got down on their hands and knees toexamine the petroglyph. There were others depicting a squatting man, a caterpillar, a ladder, and a spoked wheel.
    â€œWhat do they mean?” Pep asked.
    â€œThere are lots of theories,” the ranger told her. “They might have been primitive maps, or astronomical markers. Or maybe they were religious symbols, or boundaries between different tribes. We really don’t know for sure.”
    Pep, always interested in codes and secret messages, was fascinated by the petroglyphs. Her brother—he of the short attention span—had wandered a short distance away from the group. He happened to look down to see a large gray rock with these letters written on it. . . .
    EDIWEFER
    Coke called his sister over.
    â€œLook at this,” he said. “The ancient