Once upon a time, in the middle of a very long drive from Salt Lake to Phoenix, I took myself on a little detour to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. It was a park I’d never visited, was literally right off my route (which was already a detour to include stops at Four Corners and Shiprock, NM), and I figured a quick stop to check it out would be a good way to stretch my legs. It was….well, it as nothing like I expected, and not in a very good way. I mean, the stripey desert was gorgeous, with layers of red and white and purple and green on the dunes and hills glowing in the late afternoon sun. It was too warm for me to really enjoy a little hike (when I’d left that morning it was in the low 30’s, the weather in Petrified Forest NP was in the 80’s with no shade and very few substantial clouds), and I had been subsisting off gas station snacks for a day and a half already.
So, instead of hiking down among the hills, I wandered around the look out places, and then drove to the next, and the next, and the next. Petrified Forest NP isn’t large, and there is a 20-ish mile loop that takes you through the most popular parts of the park. After an hour of driving and wandering and driving and wandering I still hadn’t seen any actual trees petrified into rocks, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but, I don’t know, maybe a few rocky stumps here or there?
Nope, just more striped hills. Pretty, stunning even, but for me this part was not As Advertised, and that usually leads to disappointment.
Towards the end of my drive through the park I pulled over to view Newspaper Rock, which is best seen with binoculars (or the zoom function of your best camera lens), humans aren’t allowed anywhere near the engravings, probably with good reason; time and time again humans in the general public have shown they are the worst for taking care of ancient spaces. That being said, I do wish I would have been able to get a closer look at these drawings, don’t they look so cool!?
As I headed out of the park the red striped hills gave way to gray and blue and green striped hills, they look a lot more like The Badlands in South Dakota than anything I’ve seen in Red Rock Country. And then, my camera battery died. I did see a few rocky stumps and sections of fallen trees before I exited the park, but most of my little adventure was striped and petrified desert. Again, that kind of geology is pretty cool, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.
The town of Holbrook, Arizona is just a few miles from Petrified Forest National Park (population: 5,000), they have petrified logs lined up like vehicles at a car lot, hundreds of them for sale, giant ones, medium-sized ones, smaller ones. So, if petrified logs is what you are hoping to see, you will probably have a better shot of seeing them in town than in the park–although it kills me a little to actually type those words out.
Have you been to the Petrified Forest? Have you ever been disappointed in a National Park? Do you pack extra camera batteries, prepared like a girl scout, to avoid lack-of-battery predicaments!?
Hmmmm… Kind of bummer for a “national” park. Doesn’t “national” connotate awesomeness? Is connotate a word? Spell-check doesn’t think so. Must google…
On camera batteries dying… I was driving around in a canyon taking pictures when I first got my DSLR. It died right as a porcupine walked across the street right in front of me. FOR THE LOVE!!! When will a porcupine EVER walk right in front of me again? Never, I say. Never. Also, this was before mys husband or I had camera phones, so our hands were truly tied.
Apparently I’m supposed to say “connote.”
Right!? WHERE IS THE AWESOME!??! CONNOTE ME SOME AWESOME, NATIONAL PARK!
xox
Very pretty!
Those purpley-stripey hills were really stunning. It’s probably too many I was cranky already by that point.
xox
I went to that national park with my family when I was 7, and I don’t remember anything about it, really. We went to the Grand Canyon on that same trip. I grew up near Dallas, and this was my first trip out of state, and my first trip to see mountains. I don’t remember the Petrified Forest doing a lot for me.
And yes, I always have extra batteries in my camera bag. I use rechargeable batteries (totally worth the investment), and I rotate the batteries out pretty regularly.
I’ve never run out of camera batteries…I knew I should have charged it the night before (I’m usually pretty good about charging it…not sure what made me so cocky this time. Sigh.)
xox
We went to Petrified Forest NP back in 2009 on our road trip and LOVED. IT. But! I will say that I also recall being super disappointed in the first part of the park, the forest part, because of what you said–the petrified trees did not live up to the billing. But the other part of the park, the Painted Desert, more than made up for the forest disappointment–I LOVED those badlands. Now I really want to go to Badlands NP in South Dakota.
I think you must have drove in the opposite loop that I did, my (alleged) forests were last, so I kept waiting for this cooler-than-the-badlands hype…and it never materialized. Sigh. Dang expectations!
xox
On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Feisty Harriet wrote:
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It does look beautiful in a lonely way. Maybe the petrified forest is lying down? There’s a seaside petrified forest down south, here in NZ, and all the trunks are fossilised into the rock at eye level.
At the very end of my loop I did see a few rock-trees that were laying on their sides…but even so, it was a let down. Sigh, dang fantastical expectations!
xox