Petrified.......

7:31 am - Sunday - February 3rd - Winslow, AZ - 46º F, 70% humidity, wind 19 mph out of the south by southwest.....partly cloudy today with winds in the 25-35 mph range later, and a forecast high of 58º F.....Super Bowl 53 is today!

Before I get into Saturday's adventures I would like to note that on February 1st of this year we completed 7 years living on the road in our 1982 Newell Classic.  It feels like the years are rolling by at a rapid rate, but when we think back on everywhere we have been, and all that we have done 7 years does not seem long enough to contain all that we have done, experienced, and seen.  The adventure continues with no apparent end in sight.  We love our life, and are grateful you have chosen to share it with us!  Now, onto regularly scheduled programming!

We postponed our trip back in time to the Petrified Forest until Saturday.  We were seeing forecasts of possible rain, and high winds for Saturday, but as it turned out it was a beautiful, blustery day with amazing cloud formations being swept across the expansive horizon.  It was about a 45 minute drive back to the north entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park (includes a big portion of the Painted Desert which we were able to see the first time we were there about 8 days prior)......

......using our National Parks Golden Age pass we entered the park cost free, and made our way northward inititally through the Painted Desert portion of the park......

 Painted Desert

......there are number of informational signs which I will post before we get into the pictures of the rest of the park.....

 Painted Desert informational sign

.....the Painted Desert covers over 1700 square miles (120 miles long by 60 miles wide), and a large chunk of it is with the boundaries of the Petrified Forest NP......

 Painted Desert Inn.....a Fred Harvey operation....served their last meal in 1963

 
.......from the Painted Desert Inn we continued along the park road eventually turning south, and crossing over I-40 to the Petrified Forest portion of the park.....

.....at first the samples of petrified wood are few and far in between, but as you progress southward you begin to find more and more.......

 Crystal Forest

.....eventually we stopped at the 'Crystal Forest' part of the park where petrified wood, and logs are found in abundance......the loop trail here is about .75 long and well worth the time.....this is probably the greatest concentration of petrified logs we found on this day......a very interesting walk......

.......there were several areas where we were able to view numerous petroglyphs........the loop trail is about .5 miles long, and a very easy walk.....

 Petroglyphs

Newspaper Rock

 
.....another stop we made was at 'Blue Mesa' which provided a 1 mile (loop) walking path.  We were able to view the stratification of the area.......

 Blue Mesa

 Some hoodoos

......we thoroughly enjoyed this 1 mile loop trail, which took us about 45 minutes to traverse (we stopped often to take pictures), and highly recommend this walk.....

 A little perspective on how large this tree was

......the park road which takes you from north to south (or south to north if you wish to enter at the South Entrance) is about 28 miles in length.  We finally reached the South Entrance around 2:30 pm and took time to visit the park store, as well as the museum.....it was here we found the largest example of a petrified tree (above)......

 Agate Bridge

This was a long one!

......by 3 pm we were on our way back to Winslow after a delightful day of sightseeing.  We have passed by this National Park numerous times over the years, and I am embarrassed to say it took us this long to visit it formally.  The wonderful, windblown cloud formations added enormously to our experience.  We spent about 4 hours in the park, but I could see spending 8 hours, or more there with perfect weather conditions.  The wind lowered the 'feel' of the temperature (high of 59º F Saturday) to about 45º F, so we remained bundled up most of our visit (gloves, watch caps, long pants, gloves).

Thanks for stopping by!

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