Tripometer – 12,518 mi
Gas Gauge – 948.996 gal
Location – Holbrook / Petrified Forest KOA, AZ
Lodging – $34
Cans of OFF – 4
We woke this morning and ran out of the trailer in full tourist mode, grabbed a breakfast sandwich and coffee at McDonald’s and were in Petrified Forest National Park in no time flat. We had heard from several people (you know who you are) that this park wasn’t as interesting as most and could be skipped. Not deterred, and following two days of rock hunting in the Arizona hills, we were ready to view some rocks that other people have found for us.
We found to our delight that Petrified Forest National Park prides themselves on being dog friendly. Not only are dogs allowed anywhere in the park except buildings, the visitor center has a “Bark Ranger” program (A ‘personalized certificate’, a couple of treats and a poop bag). We were prepared to have Ranger spend most of the day in the car as per the usual in National Parks. This was a pleasant surprise. Ranger responded to this tremendous freedom by giving us a heart attack by deciding to poop within a foot or two from a tremendous canyon drop-off. Do you really need a great view to do your business?
The national park is comprised mainly of a 22 mile North/South road with a dozen different pull offs for trails, overlooks, and interesting sites. Aside from petrified wood, the National Park has a wide variety of canyons, Native American Indian petroglyphs and a memorial to old Rt 66 which ran through the park until the 80’s.
We expected petrified wood and lots of it, but what we didn’t expect was the tremendous variety and the stunning beauty of the petrified wood. This area of Arizona is known for their spectacular rainbow petrified wood. The incredibly wide variety of colors that can be found within one piece of petrified wood is amazing. On the other hand, there were many specimens that appeared to have little to no change from their original coloring, making them look like they fell only a few years ago. We’ve included a few pictures to give a flavor for what we saw.
On our way back to the trailer in the evening we stopped by the largest rock shop in Holbrook, AZ, Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood. The scale of this shop is beyond anything we’ve ever seen. There was probably close to an acre of petrified wood next to the shop, all of it too large to be picked up by hand. Inside the shop there was a collection of petrified wood that was clearly generations old and thrilling to look at. We want to find a beautiful piece of petrified wood for our house and spent well over an hour digging through literally piles of petrified wood behind this shop. They had many pieces inside that had been selected and worked, but we were looking for something a bit more natural looking than the cut and polished pieces selling for hundreds of dollars. After an exhaustive search that turned up a half dozen possible pieces, we decided to sleep on it and left empty handed.
Returning to camp we were surprised to see a dozen freshly planted trees in a bed right next to our trailer. Less than a foot from the trailer to be exact. The gardener had clearly been busy today. With a big day behind us and a long drive ahead of us tomorrow we went to bed early.
Special Note: Mosquitos! Climbing on top of petrified wood piles this evening we were set upon by mosquitos. We haven’t run across a mosquito since Montana over 2 months ago. We’re not so happy to run into these little blood suckers again.