Peggy and I jumped up this morning, drank a bit of fortified coffee, packed some vittles for a day of exploring and departed OK RV Park before 0900 hours. We headed back east on I-40 until we reached the entrance to Petrified Forest National Park. After a short stop at the visitor center for postcards, we pulled up in the entrance line to pay $20 to access the park. Fortunately, we had our federal access pass and got in free.
The first several miles takes you along the road through a section of the park called Painted Desert. I do not have the capability to use adequate superlatives to describe the scenery in this magnificent place. The terrain exhibits all the colors of the spectrum in the cliffs and mesas and we could have easily filled up our data chip in the camera taking pictures of the stunning scenery. We stopped and strolled around wherever there was a possibility and were delighted.
Things only got better because no sooner had we left the dazzling panoramas of the Painted Desert when we crossed I-40 and entered Petrified Forest. There isn’t too much petrified anything at the beginning but soon we got into the really neat stuff. The terrain is extraordinarily colorful with hues of red, pink, orange, blue, white and purple everywhere we looked. As we continued south through the park, more and more petrified wood started showing up near the road with equally extraordinary colors of what used to be wood 225 million years ago. We pulled out everywhere we could and again took all the available short little trails they have through the wonderful gardens of petrified wood chunks strewn about the stunning terrain. This is definitely an E-ticket ride and a bucket list adventure. Plan on spending the whole day watching the colors change in the sunlight while covering the 25 mile long road through the park. I will come back if I get another opportunity.