Day # 48 – The Petrified Forest N.P.

Well, we have decided to extend our trip a little. I guess we figured that 52 days just wasn’t long enough. Actually what we discussed was that since we are all the way out here and the kids love spending time hiking around the national parks, why not stay a few extra days and see a few more parks. As a result, anyone who looked at one of our first posts where I described the route we were going to take will notice we have made some changes.

So today we are going to tow our camper from Williams, AZ to Gallup, NM. Along the way we are going to stop at “The Petrified Forest National Park” and check out some logs that had petrified and the petro glyphs on some of the pueblo ruins. After today, we are going to back track up into Utah and go to CanyonLands and Arches National parks. Then we will head over to Denver and Colorado Springs and do the Rockies before heading home. We will be adding 6 days to our trip to bring the total up to 58 days.

So today we left Williams (camper in tow) for the relativity easy drive over to the Petrified Forest NP. It took about 2 hours to get there after we stopped at Casa D’Ronald (My southwestern nickname for Mc Donald’s). Unfortunately, the fever that AJ had kicked by yesterday reared its ugly head again. Abby woke up feeling crappy and a check with the thermometer showed she had a 101 fever. She had no other symptoms other than a sinus headache, so we gave her some Tylenol for the fever and kiddie sudaphed for the sinus pressure. We had planned to augment the trips to the visitor centers and overlooks with a couple of neat trail hikes back into the petrified logs and the Painted Desert. Now we will just stick to the stuff that doesn’t require the kids to be out in the heat too long, because as we leave the higher elevations, we will also be leaving our cool temperatures.

We got to the Petrified Forest and decided to go through the town of Holbrook, AZ so we could go in the south entrance to the park. I wish we had an extra day to poke around Holbrook. It is another city that has Route 66 going through its downtown and there was some interesting looking museums and tourist crap that would be fun to see. Maybe the next time I get laid-off over the summer and we decide to take a ridiculously long camping trip I can check it out.
Our first stop in the Petrified Forest was at the Rainbow Forest Museum and visitor’s center. This is where you can tour a section of the hillside that contains hundreds of petrified logs. There was also some interesting stuff in the visitor’s center including 3 full skeletons of small dinosaurs. They also had some cool things for sale and I bought a neat tee-shirt with a design of the park on the back. Missy was able to get her National Parks Passport stamped here also. Then we headed out the back to the tour the petrified logs. Some of the logs are small, the diameter of your leg. But some are huge, several times larger around that an average mans waist. There were the really cool looking logs because they had so much variation in the colors and textures of the crystal and stone that had formed as the log petrified. There is a basic trail that takes you about 100 yards from the visitor’s center and there is also an extended trail. We had wanted to hike out on the extended trail, but Abby and AJ’s moods made it an easy decision to just do the shorter trail. After the Crystal House we stopped at the gift shop so the kids could make smashed pennies (and cool off - it was approaching 100 degrees by this time). Sarah was happy to inform us that her penny passport is now over 2/3 full and she only has room for 11 more smashed pennies.

Next we headed up to Agate Bridge. Some time ago one of the petrified logs fell across a ravine. As the soil and sand continued to erode, the log created a natural bridge. It was interesting, but the girls wanted to walk across or under the bridge. You are not allowed to walk across and getting underneath would be possible, but would make for a pretty difficult climb down the creek bed. So we decided to head to our next stop.

We stopped at Puerco Pueblo to check out the ruins and see the petro glyphs. The ruins were okay…just foundations were the building used to be. But the Petro glyphs were really cool. There was no sign that showed you where to look, just 3 overlooks of the hillside where the rocks with the drawings were located. So it was kind of like “discovering” them as you saw new drawings on the 50 or so rocks strewn about the hill. Abby and Sarah were really into looking for, and finding, the drawings. AJ was happy to sit in the middle of the trail with one of his toy cars and make crashing sounds. We stayed here for quite a while looking for new drawings and pointing them out to each other.

Our last stop was at the Painted Desert Inn. The Petrified Forest borders on the southern edge of “The Painted Desert” and some of the coloring on the hills and rock formation is really cool looking. We were able to stop and look around for a little while, but again given how the kids felt, we decided to skip the hike out behind the inn that goes into the hills. Instead Missy made some lunch in the camper while Sarah, Abby and I checked out the Inn (AJ was asleep in the truck at this point). Calling it an Inn is odd since it no longer accepts overnight guests. Instead the Park Service has turned it into a kind of mini-museum for the Petro glyphs and Indians believed to have lived here. As with all the other things Indian related on this trip, Sarah was very interested in looking at the information on display. And because Sarah was interested, Abby was interested too. It was a nice, but small, collection petro glyphs and information explaining the symbols.

After eating Missy’s yummy lunch in the car, we got back on I-40 for the trip over to Gallup, NM. Before we changed our plans we were going to drive through Gallup all the way to Albuquerque tonight. Now the drive is much shorter. Still, it was another 2 hours to Gallup.
The KOA campground here is pretty crappy and if we were staying any longer than a night, I would find someplace else. But for a place to park for 1-night, it is fine. We needed some supplies so we headed to the Gallup Wal-Mart. Along the way we found a Golden Corral restaurant. It was fast and easy and cheap, so we ate a quick dinner there. It was interesting to note the difference in the menu items from the Golden Corral’s at home to one in New Mexico. I don’t remember 4 different kinds of beans and Jalapeño Pork chops on the menu in Ohio. After Wal-Mart it was back to the camper. We have a long travel day tomorrow going into Utah and its all 2-lane backcountry roads. So I wanted to get a good night sleep.