Painted Desert, Petroglyphs, and the Petrified Forest

We made an overnight stop in Holbrook, on  our way to the Sedona area, mainly to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. We stayed at the OK RV Park, which was a private park with pull through sites and a laundry, which we took advantage of while there. After setting up, we headed straight over to the Park. We started at the north end of this 28 mile park which is the Painted Desert portion. The views here are spectacular.

 

                                                                                            

This national park is the only one that contains a segment of the Historical Route 66 alignment and part of the National Old Trails Highway also passes through it.

The park has over 50,000 acres of designated wilderness and is a great place for hiking and many interesting      designated trails are available to everyone.  One is where you can walk among the remains of a hundred room village formerly occupied by the Puebloan people centuries ago. There are also petroglyphs on the boulders and walls.
Newspaper Rock is also a place to see hundreds of petroglyphs.

     Another beautiful area is the Tepees, which are hills layered in blues, purples and grays created by various minerals in cone shaped formations. This area reminded us of the Badlands of South Dakota

  We took the Crystal Forest trail which contains many of the petrified logs. We had seen a petrified tree in one of our stops last year but nothing prepared us for the beauty of these logs with the crystal deposits within. The brilliant colors of the wood come mainly from three minerals, pure white quartz and the many colors from manganese oxides and iron oxides.

 Besides the Visitor Center at the north end, there is also a museum at the south end of the park A fascinating place to spend some time.