Nine year old Allen Forthenbach keeps his thoughts and observations in his top secret journal. Below is a sneak peek at his journal....

Allen's Journal Entry #1
Date: Equinox
Location: Somewhere near my neighborhood. Where, exactly I do not know.
Sub note: I have somehow found a new and mysterious land. I don't know how I arrived here or why, but I am here nonetheless. Also my bike did not seem to make it with me to this strange place. I find this fact quite interesting.

Notes: This new place has none of the characteristics of my neighborhood. No houses, street signs, streets, barking dogs; nothing looks the slightest bit familiar. The land itself possesses a quality one could only describe as indescribable. Greens and blues were seldom while yellows, browns, reds, oranges and colors associated with the desert and possibly even Mars, were splashed generously across the landscape. Great vertical cliffs of granite and sandstone framed the Petrified Forest standing as a sentinel to a grand valley's passage. Trees once vibrant with life now stood as stone. The breeze no longer bent their bows. Rigid with the passing of time, the forest of stone ushered me further into the mouth of the unknown.

Trekking along the valley floor I spotted a figure hunched over the river of stone far in the distance. The mid-day sun beat relentlessly down upon the barren ground, which looked as though it had once been a lush and vibrant valley. I can see the squeakish figure moving ever so slightly, creating dust clouds around it. The reddish and orange tinged stones radiate waves of heat that dance into a liquid mirage. Still the figure remains stooped, belching dust. The intense heat made me question my mental capacity. Is it an illusion? Is it real? What or who exactly is this figure? What exactly is this strange yet somehow magical place? Are thirst, heat and exhaustion playing a trick on me?

As I moved forward the figure remained. This is no trick or illusion. This is real. The figure soon revealed itself as a man dressed in khaki pants and a wild patterned Hawaiian shirt. A broad rimmed hat shades him as he clutches a paintbrush in his left hand and a pencil in his right. The left hand is working furiously. Each stroke of the brush tickles the surface of the stone creating puffs of dust. I approached him with caution.