Travel date: July 13, 2017
Generally speaking, I wouldn’t suggest a drive-through visit to any National Park if it can be avoided. But if any park lends itself to this kind of visit, it’s Petrified Forest–you can see a whole lot of the park if you spend a few hours driving through and stopping along the way. This is the only way we were able to fit the park into our itinerary, and it was definitely worth the detour. And it was the middle of July and very hot when we were there, so we weren’t really interested in any long hikes or anything anyway.
We were driving from Williams, AZ to Grants, NM that day–just under 300 miles–so we left as early as we could so we could spend as much time as possible in the park. The 28 mile main road through Petrified Forest runs between Hwy 180 on the south end and I-40 to the north; so you basically need to decide whether it makes more sense to go north or south, then come in at one entrance and exit at the other.
We started at the south end off of 180 with a visit to the Rainbow Forest Museum and Visitor Center near the park entrance. We picked up Abe’s junior ranger book, watched the film, and checked out the exhibits here before heading to the gift shop across the street for ice cream. I don’t remember why we needed ice cream right away, but I guess we did.
There was ample RV parking at the visitors center and everywhere we wanted to stop. This was mid-week in summer, so it’s possible things would be tighter on a weekend, but other than the occasional side road or parking lot that was closed to trailers, we had no trouble getting anywhere we wanted to go.
After the ice cream, we walked the Giant Logs trail behind the visitor center. This .4 mile trail is a great introduction to the petrified wood the park is named for.
There are also some very nice overlook type of views and some hills to climb:
And then we started our drive through the park, stopping along the way anywhere that looked interesting. I’m not going to remember every stop we made, but I do remember that at this one some crows really wanted us to stay put so they could stay in the shade of the trailer longer:
The trailer was allowed on the Blue Mesa scenic drive (a short loop detour off the main road), and we felt like we were back in the Badlands:
These pictures remind me….although the name of the park is Petrified Forest, the petrified wood turned out not to be the main attraction–at least not for me. The landscape is really beautiful (or butte-iful, if you will), and there’s some very cool human history as well.
Like, for example! We stopped to take the .3 mile Puerco Pueblo trail to see the remains of a 100 room pueblo and some petroglyphs.
The van and trailer looked very handsome waiting for us in the parking lot, I thought:
I think my favorite thing was our stop at the Painted Desert Inn:
The Painted Desert Inn was, as the name suggests, an inn–right on Route 66–for most of its nearly 100 year life, but now it’s a museum maintained by the NPS. You can walk through and admire the architecture and furnishings and, in the summer months, you can grab an ice cream in the downstairs ice cream parlor (it had already closed by the time we got there, or we might have had to eat more ice cream). I’m going to do a full tour of the building over on the house blog soon, but here are a couple of sneak peeks of the inside:
And Abe got his Junior Ranger badge here:
We stopped by the visitors center on the north end of the park on our way out, but this one is mostly a gift shop and place to get some information about the park–not much in the way of exhibits, and I don’t think there are in any trails in this area.
We were probably in the park for four or five hours all together, and that was a good length of time for a general overview. If you have more time, there are a number of other short trails that we didn’t get to, longer hikes, and ranger led programs. I know that I pretty much always say we could have used another day or two everywhere we go….but, honestly, one afternoon was enough time for Petrified Forest in July, in the 90+ heat with the sun beating down. But I’d definitely love to come back sometime when it’s cooler and do more exploring on foot.
And now a quick shout out to our stop that night: the Grants/Cibola Sands KOA in Grants, New Mexico. Grants is about two hours from Petrified Forest, so a bit far for a day trip, but just the right distance away if you’re leaving the park late afternoon and need to get in a few more miles. We were only here one night, so I’m not going to do a full review, but it was a lovely little campground. They gave us a sheet at check-in with, if I remember right, ideas for a full four day itinerary in the area, and it definitely made me wish we could stay longer. As it was, we had to content ourselves with a pleasant evening at the campground.
We deliberately picked a site at the very edge of the campground, because we wanted something spacious and with this view:
That’s ancient lava flow back there behind the kids playing tetherball. You can’t go walking out on it (it’s fenced off), but it’s a pretty cool backdrop. We played on the playground, too:
Here’s our site:
And–rare feature in a campground–they offer free continental breakfast here!
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