DAY 10 – 11, March 12 – 13: Petrified Forest and Painted Desert NP

DAY 10 - MARCH 12 - HOLBROOK, ARIZONA
On Friday, day 10, we headed north up into the ‘high desert’. It was a clear, sunny day and as we approached the White Mountains, we can see snow covered scenery. Our destination is Holbrook, Arizona; a ‘cowboy’ town located on the Historic Route 66, and about the only good size town that is located in northeastern Arizona.

It is the nearest town to the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert National Monument. Both parks are side by side and one road runs through them both. We will be spending two nights in Holbrook and will be visiting these parks. After 3.5 hours and 170 miles, we arrived at the Holbrook KOA.

HOLBROOK PETRIFIED FOREST KOA: From what we could find, there are only two RV parks in Holbrook. We determined that the KOA was the better one. It is a mid size RV park with 100 sites, mostly pull thrus. Being in the desert, it is very sparse with all dirt interior roads and sites. It is probably very muddy after it rains. There are a few small trees and no grass. It is nicely laid out and the sites are fairly close together, but there is enough room for slide outs and awnings. The place was pretty empty when we stayed there so we had no neighbors which gave us lots of room. It is close to the highway, so there is a lot of traffic noise and we could hear a train nearby. But it was fairly quiet at night. There is cable TV (with 50 channels) and free WiFi (strong signal). The bathrooms are old, but clean. We rated this park 3.5 out of 5.

I want to introduce you to “TT” Traveling Turtle, aka Beanie Baby ‘Slowpoke’. This little stuffed critter is our travel mascot. He is always in my (Jo) car and goes wherever I go. When we travel, he rides in the Ford and we take him along to see all of the sights with us. He has been on all of our cross country trips including Canada and Alaska. Look for TT in our travel pictures. He is somewhere in some of them. Can you find him??

DAY 11 – MARCH 13 – PETRIFIED FOREST NP and PAINTED DESERT NM:              
It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day when we visited Petrified Forest NP and Painted Desert NM. Petrified Forest National Park was established in 1906 to protect one of the worlds’ largest and most colorful deposits of petrified wood. Millions of years ago this area was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall, stately trees grew along the banks. There were also ferns and other plants and small dinosaurs. The trees fell and a mix of silt, mud and volcanic ask buried the logs. This sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs’ decay. Silica laden ground water seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz and the logs were preserved as petrified wood. In the mid 1800’s US government mappers and surveyors exploring this area carried stories back East of the remarkable “Painted Desert” and its trees turned to stone. Next all of the ranchers and sightseers visited the area and took the petrified wood for souvenirs and commercial ventures. Finally this area’s value was recognized and in 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt set aside selected stands of petrified trees as a Monument. In 1932, 53,000 more acres of the Painted Desert were added to the Monument. In 1962 it was designated as a National Park.

Petrified Forest National Park.  Can you find TT?

  

  

Petrified Forest National Park - Crystal Forest

We explored the 28-mile road through this National Park area and took lots of pictures and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. A very strong wind came up later in the day, so strong that it blew you off the trail so we did very little hiking. It was just too windy and cold.
  
The Historic Route 66 runs through these parks with Painted Desert on one side and Petrified Forest on the other side. We came across this ‘artifact’ of the past on Route 66 near the parks visitor center.

We had an unpleasant surprise when we returned to our trailer. We forgot we had put the awning out. It was such a sunny day when we arrived, we put it out to shade the trailer. That strong wind that come up while we were at the National Park had torn out the rods holding the awning in place, and draped the whole thing over the top of the trailer. It was completely ruined. Dave was able to remove the whole thing and stow it under the trailer. We will try to find replacement parts and fix it sometime during the trip. Things happen and we hoped that this incident will be the worst that will happen to us during this 4 month trip.

Our next destination is New Mexico.