A Sea of Color in the Petrified Forest & Painted Desert
Petrified Wood
We only got to spend about 4 hours here, on route from Flagstaff to Santa Fe. But it was worth the stop. The colors were spectacular. Plus the entire place is pet friendly!
Established in 1906, the Petrified Forest National Park, contains one of the world's largest collections of petrified wood. What is petrified wood, you ask? It's a log that has all of its plant material replaced by minerals, so it essentially becomes stone. The trees here died about 210+ million years ago, were buried under silt, sand, volcanic ash...and voila!, petrified wood.
Blue Mesa
This area is also filled with Badlands, which sounds bad ass, but really, it just means that an area of soft rock has been cut and eroded into many gullies where vegetation cannot take hold. The layers of colorful sediment that make of the landscape move from blue/gray to reds as you drive the 28 miles through the park.
Blue Mesa
Petrified Wood, Blue Mesa trail.
Giving the Vanagon a rest — it was hot!
Painted Desert
This historic Painted Desert Inn was built in the 1920s and originally made of...petrified wood! It was refashioned into an adobe style when the National Park took over in the 1930s. It's now a visitor's center.