Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert

Closed up our house and left on the 11th of April and headed for our Alpha Rally in Casa Grande.   Spent a wonderful 6 days with  200 other Alpha owners and it was fun to see about 120 RV’s like ours all parked together.  We renewed some old friendships from when we last attended this rally in 2012 and made new ones.   One thing which amazed me was how many new fellow travelers we met from the Pacific NW.

Thursday night Good-bye dinner

Rally ended on Thursday and we pulled out along with everyone else on Friday the 17^th and began our trek north, with our first overnight stop in in Winslow Arizona.  We are headed to a little town in the NE corner of Arizona called Chinle,    There we are going to tour a National Monument called Canyon De Chelly (pronounced Canyon de Shay) to see the cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and learn about the history of this Navajo Reservation and its people..

Along the way we discovered two problems with our RV.  One was the AC/heater fan in the dash board went out and the batteries (all 6 of them) are aging out.  We can work around both of the problems until we get to the Salt Lake City area, where we know of a repair place that specializes in our RV.

We found a unique little RV park about 100 miles east of Flagstaf where we could stay for a couple of days so Deane could check out our problems.  Since Interstate 40 is the old Route 66, the place we called home for two days was named "Root 66 RV Park".  While talking to the owner of the park, I asked if he knew where the closest Costco was.  He looked at me surprised and asked "what is a Costco?"   He really needs to sell this place and get a life!

Deane with head in the front of RV

Deane worked his magic on Saturday morning and in the afternoon we headed out to see Petrified Forest National Park that was close by.   As we have traveled, we attempt to visit as many National Parks and Monuments we can along our designated routes.  

Petrified Forest National Park is 146 square miles large and is easy to understand why it received a National designation.  It would be criminal not to protect this beautiful land from commercialism and vandalism.

Besides being the largest petrified forest in the US it is also a world class scientific laboratory for the study of fossils from about 225 million years ago.  Archaeologists have determined the earliest inhabitants of the area came about 8000 years ago.

Painted Desert view

The Painted Desert is found in the north part of the park.  There is a 28 mile road through the Park with 12 well marked points of interest.   Each of the 12 different stops helps you learn what took place 225 million years ago,just take in the views or take a hike.  

We took so many good pictures.....was hard not to put all of them here.   

The most beautiful hike we took was into the Blue Mesa.  The hike is only about a mile long, on a paved trail, but there is a very steep decent into the canyon which has to be traversed in reverse coming back out.  Remember to take water with you and some of the trails we walked are not handicap accessible.   

Painted Desert view

Blue Mesa

Hodoo

One impressive stop was at Jasper Forest, where you finally get the perspective of what the actual forest that inhabited the area 225 million years ago must have been like.   


We highly recommend stopping at the visitors center at the North Entrance first, before you start your tour, and seeing the short video they have.  Puts everything in perspective.

The Teepees

Giant Petrified logs in the forest

Beautiful crystals and silica

Old Route 66 was replaced with Interstate 40, but along the way, there are remnants of the old road.  Part of the old road runs between the two National Parks and is marked with this old Model A.

Model T

Route 66 Marker

Mogollon Rim

Our second day here at Root 66 RV Park, we decided to take a drive south to see an area called Pine Top.   This is an area on the Mogollon Rim in the White Mountains, about 3 hours from Phoenix where some go in the summer to get out of the heat.  It is about 5000ft up and much cooler than the 100 temps in the valley.  Pine Top was nothing spectacular, we saw very expensive homes to park models.  Reminded us of being up in the Sierras around Lake Tahoe.  Sometimes you realize how similar so many places are to where you have been before.


Leaving tomorrow for Canyon de Chilly.