Petrified Forest & Painted Desert.

After leaving El Morro and heading west, I had a choice of either heading south to Phoenix or going back north to see Petrified Forest National Park and Meteor Crater. At the ‘Y’ joining US-61 & US-191, I headed north.

Here in the Southwest there are few trees, the roads are wide, the vistas vast and the weather this time of year is exceptionally pleasant, so even if there isn’t someplace to go, there always is a view of somewhere.

Near the entrance to Petrified Forest National Park are two businesses that deal in polished rocks and all sorts of Southwest type nick-nacks. Wow, amazing all the beautiful forms the rock attains. The one store I wandered around had tons of polished and cut rocks. Some were huge and priced at $15,000 or more. Whoa! After spending an hour browsing at the shop I head over to Petrified Forest and trek around looking at all the toppled 150 million year old trees that have turned to rock. There is a small museum there that has several skeletons of ancient animals set up so it was very interesting. Spent a couple hours in the museum and trekking the trails around the park.

Here’s one of the trees…

After leaving the Petrified Forest, continuing north, brings you to several roadside sites. This spot along the highway has some spectacular multicolored hills.

A few miles down the road you come to another ancient Indian village.

And at the village are these petroglyths.

There were several other stops in the park with interesting features and eventually you get to the Painted Desert. This weird picture is not what I remember the colors to have been, but it is close. And my camera has never color faulted before. So I guess there was something going on with color and light on this day and time and subject that caused something to happen in the camera. Why there is a violet hue above the hills is beyond me.

Here’s another shot just a 100′ up the road and looking west instead of North.

After I got out of the park, and a few miles west on I-40, I stopped at a little town named Joseph City. There really isn’t much left of the town. It’s just barely hanging on and not much more then a wide spot on the freeway. I did find a nice little RV park there in town. The park was for sale so I wandered around the area on my bike checking out the possibilities. But the place was way overpriced. They were asking $450,000 for a property that should have been priced at under $100,000. They had a realtor from Flagstaff who convinced them it is worth more and I think they got greedy. The RV space rental was only $10.50 per night though. For all services including cable. Can’t beat that. And the Love’s fuel station in Joseph City was the lowest diesel fuel price I’d seen in months.