Northern Arizona
Petrified Forest National Park
April 3, 3022
We left Gallup and headed west to Petrified Forest National Park, which is an odd park in that its gate does not open until 8 a.m. Because there is no daylight savings time in Arizona, we would be gaining an hour when we entered the state from New Mexico. We had driven by the park before, but had never taken the time to see its sights.
We entered the park from the north side and visited several sites on the park road north of I-40 before heading south. These included Painted Desert Historic Inn (which had just barely reopened after having been closed since March 2020 due to COVID) and viewpoints of the painted desert. You pass a monument to the old Historic Route 66 not far after the Inn and just before going across I-40.
These first photos are of the Painted Desert.
Old Route 66 marker
We then visited sights south I-40, including Newspaper Rock and Agate Bridge. We took three short hikes, including part of the Painted Desert Trail, the Blue Mesa Trail (which offered unusual colors, hence its name) and the Crystal Forest Trail. The latter had the largest collection of petrified logs. We then went to the Rainbow Forest Museum nearing the end of the park scenic drive, and saw the exhibits and the very large Old Faithful petrified log.
Newspaper Rock
Photos above and below are from the Blue Mesa area
Various shapes
of logs
The largest petrified log in the park.
We were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed our morning in the park.
We drove on US 180 back to I–40 and after a lunch stop continued on, through “Winslow, Arizona,” to Flagstaff. The weather had cooled considerably, so we looked for something to do indoors rather than the animal park we had planned to visit. We chose the Museum of Northern Arizona and its excellent exhibits on the geology, archeology and Native Peoples of the area. Then we drove through historic downtown Flagstaff and on to Williams for the night. Williams is another town in Arizona, like Seligman we visited previously, that has many businesses that evoke the old Route 66. It is also the gateway to the Grand Canyon, so it has many tourists.
We drove about 260 miles today.
April 4, 2022
Today we will be returning to California and our final destination of this very long trip. We left Williams and headed west on I–40. After about 3.5 hours, we exited the highway at Kelbaker Road, which connected us to a short part of historic route US 66. We continued to Amboy, where we got a quick photo and then turned south, passing the Amboy Crater on our way to Twentynine Palms, where we stopped for lunch. Afterwards, we visited the Oasis Visitor’s Center and took a short walk to the Palm Oasis of Mara.
Top, Roy’s at Amboy; middle, Oasis visitor center; bottom typical desert town scene.
We then checked in to our Airbnb in the town of Joshua Tree. We drove about 325 miles today.
Joshua Tree is another rustic desert locale that attracts people interested in an off grid or new age lifestyles. What it does not have is a lot of places to eat dinner, being only two hours from LA (good for day trippers). Tonight, we drove 20 miles to Twentynine Palms for dinner. The next two nights we would go about 10 miles west to Yucca Valley for takeout. We were on vacation, so even with a full kitchen, we didn’t want to bother to cook.
