Painted Desert/Petrified Forest

One more stop! With barely enough time (well, really not enough time at all), we drove through Petrified Forest National Park. It's pretty amazing that most of this isn't visible from I-40, the highway that cuts right through it.

A piece of the Painted Desert (and badlands), which we had also seen while driving through other areas of northeast Arizona, just never this close:



This jalopy kicked it in on Route 66:


More badlands:




Jasper Forest, littered with hundreds of petrified tree pieces:


A much closer view of petrified trees - they are more colorful and interesting than I had expected:


The largest one in the park, called "Old Faithful" - like John says, you always know it will be there (as opposed to other pieces of petrified trees) because this one's so big and heavy that NO ONE is going to steal it:


A slice of petrified tree that was sent to Barre, VT for cutting and polishing - and apparently this stuff is way harder than granite!


Phew! What a tour. We thoroughly enjoyed all of it, and now we're enjoying being back in Howie in Flagstaff. This next week is devoted to training, exploring the local area, and trying to avoid the daily rainstorm (maybe it will stop soon?). Looking forward to it!