The Lizard goes abstract

The Lizard enjoyed the country around the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Not only is it dry, as he likes it, but the landscape is bizarre to the point of abstraction. Here The Lizard is hangin' in a bed of clay. It's kapu for humans to walk here since we'll mess it up, but The Lizard is light enough to do the landscape no harm.

16 million years ago, lava flowed across the Central Oregon landscape en masse. When it cooled fairly rapidly, the result was columns of basalt. These are at the mouth of Picture Gorge, about 35 miles west of John Day. There are similar formations in the Columbia Gorge; at Devils Postpile NM in the California Sierra; and at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.

The varying minerals in the soil create an artist's palette of colors in the Painted Hills region west of John Day. It's very cool.