Exploring Arizona – Petrified Forest National Park

About an hour drive East of Winslow, Petrified Forest National Park has a north entrance and a south entrance. I started at the south entrance visitor center and caved in to purchasing a national parks passport book. Fun!

This park is diverse. The petrified wood is fascinating, beautiful, and ancient.

Raven on Ancient Petrified Log
Small pieces of Petrified wood
This petrified log is broken in pieces exposing the beauty within
Oh, the temptation to steal away this beauty.

If conscious doesn’t stop one from stealing the precious ‘stones’, perhaps the potential of a curse from taking them will. There is a binder of “conscience letters” “written by guilt-stricken visitors who sent back pilfered rocks”. Those rocks end up in the ‘conscience pile’ on a side road somewhere since they cannot be out back to their natural placement .

But there’s so much more: petroglyphs, blue badlands, painted desert, ancient Puebloan homes. There’s 28 miles of road from one end to the other, loads of hiking choices and multiple view points and side roads.
My personal daily hiking quota was expended long before getting to the Painted Desert where it is most beautiful and remote. Can’t do it all. Hopefully there’ll be a ‘next time’!

Painted Desert Inn refurbished by the CCC
The Painted Desert

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