Since the Petrified Forest National Park wasn’t on the list of places we planned to visit, I hadn’t done any research. Sometimes this works out well, because everything is a surprise. For one thing, I didn’t know Arizona’s Painted Desert is within the 150,000 acres which make up the park.
We entered the park on the north end and drove the 28 mile road through the park. Our first treat was the painted desert…
It is hard to give a sense of scale and these pictures don’t do justice to the beauty. We stopped at the Painted Desert Inn and took in the sights…
We stopped at nearly all of the scenic overlooks.
We couldn’t resist stopping where Route 66 used to be…
Another stop was at Newspaper Rock, there are over 650 petroglyphs in the area…
Imagine a time when you wanted to leave a message for another traveler and the only way to do it was to carve it into the rocks using symbols. There is no “dictionary” for the symbols, so we can only guess as to all of their meanings. Another stop was the Puerco Pueblo. The remains of quite a few building mark the place where as many as 200 people might have lived. There are also petroglyphs here…
We were beginning to see more and more pieces of petrified wood…
We were nearly at the end of the 28 mile road when I caught sight of a pronghorn antelope. I had been hoping to see one, but had almost given up. Steve got this shot.
At the south end of the park is another visitor center with a walking trail passing gigantic petrified logs…
What amazed me the most about the logs was the variety of colors…
Have you ever visited the Petrified Forest? The Painted Desert?
The Wandering RVer 
Oh, I love your photos. I loved going through the park and seeing how it changed colors from one end to the other. You got great shots of the petroglyphs, too! The day I went, there were 75 MPH wind gusts and I was terrified of blowing off the cliffs. Safe travels, my friends! Dawn
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Thank you. Steve got the shots of the petroglyphs (he had the big lens) I wouldn’t have wanted to be out there in wind gusts like that! Enjoy the journey!
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I just noticed this place on the map last night when I was doing some long term trip planning. I figured we would stop by there, even though I wasn’t too sure what we’d find. Thanks for the tour. Definitely looks like a worthwhile place to visit.
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It is a beautiful place. Lots of back country hiking trails and incredible scenery. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
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Awesome pictures.
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Thank you. The scenery did all the work. 😉
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Yes to both questions. Magical place to visit. And you’re right about the colors. Beautiful.
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I am making a cross-country move back up to Washington State, and during my road trip, I plan on stopping at Petrified Forest National Park. Thanks for such great photos to prepare me for what I hope to see there. Oh, and I think it’s a bird eating a frog. 🙂
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Enjoy your road trip back to Washington. I hope you enjoy PFNP as much as we did. Safe travels.
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