PETRIFIED FOREST

8^th of September 2012

Saturday morning. The plan was to have whole day trip to Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. It is around 110 miles from Flagstaff (freeway). I wanted to leave earlier, and we left around 8 am. A bit less then two hours of driving. It was not too bad when we started, but it became boring pretty quickly. Flat and nothing to see. After about 85 miles we left freeway and entered town of Holbrook. It was interesting view, I felt like I was moved in time, maybe 1960’s. It was somewhat sad.

It is hard to describe it. When we left town, there was small factory working with petrified wood. And another 17 miles of flat road towards park. We stopped at “museum and store” by the intersection. Full of petrified wood and other “junk” for sale (called souvenirs). Pass the gate (and use our 80 dollars National Parks pass) and head to the visitors center. Interesting views. Small trail thru petrified wood pieces.

There were not too many people. The landscape was interesting, amazing, and full of surprises. Many signs warning against collecting of petrified wood. There were as well many signs describing early years of exploration and collection of wood and artifacts. Too bad. And driving. The whole park consist of one paved road going from freeway 40 to the road 180.

Got warmer. Quite a few stops to view the landscape. Another trail going thru collection of petrified wood.

And it is really dry here. Quite a surprise.

At one stop, by some ruins (not really impressive after seeing Wupatki) we saw funny couple of ducks (ravens). They were just sitting on the wall and not afraid of people. I had theory, they were couple and female was screaming (one raven was making noises). Funny.

Agate Bridge, another stop. Parking lot, bathrooms and viewing platform showing this:

Really impressive structure. Petrified wood and erosion clear the mass underneath. On the beginning of century, people build support to keep it intact. Apparently today the park services would leave it alone. The life is change. As I said, not many people:

Blue mesa was another sight. There was one mile trail going down to see “piles” close. Going down we were not looking forward coming back (a bit steep). More people as well. Still, impressive site with layers of minerals. When leaving, we saw tour bus full of people. Older people. They were the majority of visitors we met. They probably have time and money to explore the country. Looking at it this way, it is said, that so many people have to wait (or look forward) to the retirement to enjoy and see the country, sights and leisure time. Is not there some other (better, more balanced) way?

Freeway 40 goes thru the park, but there is no exit when in park. Just after we passed the freeway, there was small memorial to the route 66. Apparently “mother of roads” going from Chicago to LA.

Painted desert views. Hard to describe. Hard to show on pictures.

Close to the entrance of the park, there is Desert Inn. Formal Inn, which is now used as museum and gift shop. Really nice structure in the middle of the desert. The inside is really cool, including old cafe with the menu (most expansive meal was 75 cents). Ohhh ... nostalgia.

We stopped by visitor’s center for a minute (got postcards) and got of a freeway. J. Was contemplating buying some petrified wood pieces, but decided to visit other store along the freeway (we saw it on the way to the park). Long stretch of freeway ahead of us. We stopped by that store, which was really bad (a lot of junk). We drove thru Holbrook (we thought we would grab something to eat), but we found the town lost in 1960’s or so. We drove thru main street and gave up and headed to Flagstaff. We repeated that in Winslow (another town along the way) with very similar result. Sad. Very sad.