As a kid, my family visited the Petrified Forest National Park. I remember seeing the “logs” laying on the ground in pieces, and that differed from the vertical tree trunks I had imagined. I also recall buying a piece of petrified wood in a gift shop, and now wonder what happened to it.

Most of the short hikes in the park are paved enough to be accessible and easily walked in sneakers or sandals. We chose to start at the southern end of the park road and tour our way up to the Painted Desert end of the park at I-40. There are archeology findings from ancestral indigenous people, beautiful badlands, and of course, petrified wood to see throughout.

Extinct species of conifer trees growing 200+ million years ago in the Triassic Period were plentiful in this area which was a warm, wet environment near the equator. The major land mass was the supercontinent Pangea. Sediment and volcanic ash covered the trees as they fell, and water containing silica and minerals like iron and manganese gradually replaced the living tree with quartz stone. They are currently exposed due to weathering and erosion of the softer rock around them. They are beautifully colored with the minerals absorbed by the original tree trunks.

Giant Logs, Long Logs, and Agate House

There is a large parking lot at the Rainbow Forest Museum, which is just past the park gate. Three hikes are available from here. Giant logs are out among some badlands hills behind the museum, and Long Logs and Agate House are at the end of the parking lot toward the east. These two trails combine to be about 2.6 miles, which will be our longest hike of the day. Agate House was partially reconstructed by the CCC to show the eight-room Ancestral Puebloan dwelling that existed here about a thousand years ago. Petrified wood chunks make beautiful building material.

Crystal Forest

The 0.75 mile Crystal Forest trail loop had a large parking lot and places for a picnic. This trail is different from the previous ones in that the trees here have huge pieces of quartz without some of the other minerals present.

Agate Bridge

The Agate Bridge has a shelter and a small parking lot that was advertised as too small for RVs, but Usain fit just fine. The “bridge” is formed by a 110 ft intact log.

Blue Mesa

The road out to Blue Mesa was bumpy, but the drive is scenic. It has pull out places for viewing and a bigger place to park and walk the one mile trail down into the colorful badland slopes. The paleontologists love this area. Recently they suspected they would find, and went looking for, Metoposaur fossils. An intern found a cache of these amphibians that were dominant predators in the Late Triassic. Wow – bucket list check off!

This trail is paved, but steep at the beginning. It’s a bit heart-pounding on the way up, but a short distance.

Newspaper Rock and Puerco Pueblo

There is evidence of more than 13,000 years of human history in this park. Two quick stops along the road highlight some of that evidence. Both have petroglyphs for viewing, with some of the ones in Newspaper Rock being over 2,000 years old. The pueblos of Puerco were excavated, then backfilled to protect them. This was the first stop since the visitor center this morning that had bathrooms. It sure is nice to have a bathroom with us:)

Painted Desert

The Painted Desert is the last section of the park, which is closest to I-40. We found a 1932 Studebaker to show where Route 66 once ran through the park, a lookout over the desert for lunch, a hike down into the Painted Desert (where, finally, we needed our boots and hiking poles) and ice cream at the Painted Desert Inn.

It’s a full day to drive through the park like we did, and if you want to take any of the longer hikes, another day would be required. We saw what the park had to offer in one drive through. Amazing!!!

We drove on into New Mexico to stay at the USA RV Park in Gallup, which was a repeat stay for us. Last time there was a traveling group of Airstreams; this time the park had more space.