Petrified Forest National Park

I have not had as much time lately to blog because Arizona kept us very busy.  There is so much to see and do there!  I have a lot of catching up to do on blog posts, and Jake keeps asking me when I’m going to do it.  He and Jesse love to go back and read earlier posts to remember things we have done.  That is one reason why I blog, so we will have a journal to read later about all of our adventures on the road.

One of the places we visited in Arizona was Petrified Forest National Park.  We are loving our nation’s National Parks and this one did not disappoint.  We started at the south entrance of the park and worked our way up.  We spent about 5 or 6 hours hiking and exploring the park.  It’s not a huge park so that was enough time to see everything we wanted to see.  At the beginning we looked at the giant logs near the Rainbow Forest Museum and watched a movie about the history of the park.  Then we looked at some more petrified wood in the Crystal Forest.  The logs have been petrified over many years and look like beautiful, colorful crystals.  The wood is so hard and heavy, it’s hard to believe it was really a tree trunk at one time.

Hiking through the Crystal Forest.

A petrified log bridge called Agate Bridge.

I thought that this park was going to be all about looking at petrified wood, and as beautiful as it is, I didn’t think it would be fun to look at several pieces of wood all day.  But there is so much more to this park.  It is part of the Painted Desert and that is a beautiful sight to see.  It really does look like God painted the hills in this desert, He is the Master Artist.

My favorite part of the park was hiking through the Blue Mesa and Forest.

Jake holding a heavy piece of petrified wood.

Next we checked out Puerco Pueblo which highlights ancestral Puebloan ruins and petroglyphs.  This is what they called Newspaper Rock displaying 2000 year old petroglyphs.

Next we stopped to see a 1932 Studebaker where historic Route 66 once cut through the park.

Then we hiked along the Painted Desert Rim Trail which had spectacular views of the desert.

And lastly the boys completed their Junior Ranger books so they could earn a badge from this park.

Petrified Forest National Park is right off I-40 and Historic Route 66.  There are so many interesting things to see along Route 66 in Arizona that I will write about in another post.  I hope you enjoyed this post about Petrified Forest.