PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK/PAINTED DESERT

Who out there knew about Petrified Forest National Park?  I had never heard of it.  But, Mr. W knew about it and wanted to see it. So, it was "scheduled" on the trip.

We left Durango and traveled to Gallup, New Mexico.  We are staying at USA RV Park on historic Route 66 in Gallup.  This is a very nice park.  They have full hook-ups.  Most all of the sites are pull-thru and all are gravel.  There is a very nice pool and 2 laundry rooms.  There is a store in the office with great souvenirs at very reasonable prices. We got a discount for being a member of Escapees.  We paid $30 per night.  They give discounts for veterans and other RV clubs. If you are in the area, I highly recommend staying here.

The Petrified Forest National Park is about 70 miles from Gallup.  Someone had told Mr. W to go there late afternoon/early evening, so we decided to head out around 3:00.

There use to be an inn at the park. They have closed the inn down, but they still have the structure that you can tour. They hired an Indian to paint 3 murals in the inn that are still there today. The ceilings have glass tiles with Indian symbols on each tile throughout the building.  They have a lot of memorabilia left from different eras of the building as well as still having some of the furnishings.

One of the murals

Booths in the dining section.

They have a soda bar and this is the back of the barstools at the bar.

This is a replica of a menu hanging behind the bar.  Look at the prices.

The ceiling glass tiles

In the mid-1800s federal mappers and surveyors explored here, telling of a remarkable "Painted Desert and its trees turned to stone."  Next came pioneers, ranchers and sightseers. The wood was used for souvenirs and commercial ventures until residents of the region realized that petrified wood supplies were not endless.  In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt set aside select strands of the petrified trees as Petrified Forest National Monument.  In 1932, 53,200 more acres of Painted Desert were added. In 1962, Congress designated the national park. In 1970, Congress designated 50,000 acres as one of the first National Park System wilderness areas.  In 2004, Congress authorized expanded boundaries that more than doubled the park's size. Research continues to unlock the wealth of the geological, paleontological, and human stories preserved here for this and future generations.

The 28-mile park road offers overlooks with long-distance vistas of the Painted Desert and parking areas for access to hiking trails, picnic areas, and the designated wilderness.  We did not do any hiking because it is too dang hot!

Can you see the petroglyphs on the rock?  Pretty sophisticated

Petrified tree - The rock underneath is slowly eroding away. They used cement to try to stabilize it.

The colors in the wood came from minerals in the silica-saturated water. Iron, carbon, and manganese made patterns and blends of yellow, red, black, blue, brown, white and pink.

We headed to the other side of the park to see the Painted Desert.  We had to stop at the landmark where historic Route 66 use to cut through the park.  There is a 1932 Studebaker to mark the spot along with the famous Route 66 sign in concrete.

Here are some pics of the Painted Desert.

There has been talk that massive amounts of petrified wood have been stolen from Petrified Forest National Park over the many decades visitors have been coming.  To counter that belief, they have expanded a re-photography effort begun in 2007 to capture images of the park's important and iconic areas.  This project is taking the many historic photographs in their collection (more than 200 so far) and reshooting those images from the same vantage points today.  The results of these many photo pairs show that the vast majority of petrified wood is right where it was 80 to 120 years ago when the pictures were first taken.

Wood theft does occur.  If you are caught, you will be fined with a hefty fine.  But the underlying message of the old "massive theft" narrative - that today's visitors are seeing something less spectacular than their great-grandparents saw - is simply not true.

Something about a train against mountains out in the middle of the desert area as the sunsets.