Petrified Forest

One of my good friends & I like to play a game of "virtual vacation." When one of us is on a roadtrip, we text back & forth where we are, pictures, etc. On our way to Nevada, she asked if we were stopping at the Petrified Forest.

To be honest, my only goal was to get to Las Vegas to see my loved ones at Christmas and I didn't research points of interest along the way. I had no idea it was on our route. Well, of course I wanted to see it! I remember my 4th grade teacher, who was quite a traveler, telling stories about it.

I envisioned that we were going to actually drive through some ancient forest of gigantic tall trees frozen in time. However, I fell asleep and when I woke up, I said "oh no, I missed it!"  Hubby said, "I never saw it. We didn't go through any kind of forest."

Duh. It's not part of I-40. Just a short exit off, though. So we planned a detour on the way home and here are some pictures!

(By the way, this is NOT me sleeping. Just some random tourist soaking in some ancient tree vibes.) 

Basically, the petrified forest is acres & acres of strange land with thousands of petrified logs scattered across it.

I mean, they are Every. Where. Hubby joked that he didn't believe this was all petrified wood. He said it's fake logs they painted and then artfully scattered across the landscape.

This girl was either trying hard to get some signal or taking a picture after her hike.

The Visitor Center above, and a dinosaur replication below.

Anything you see in these photos that look like, um, maybe dinosaur droppings, are actually petrified logs and pieces.

I love these particular shots with those interesting formations and the moon above.

This isn't a crow. It would fan out it's neck feathers & make a strange call. It's mate was nearby.

We could see almost the entire train in the distance.

 And then we went over a bridge and I got one of my favorite shots.

 

Getting near the Painted Desert. It's something that is probably best seen at sunset or in the summer.

The Painted Desert loops north of the forest and is at the edge of the Grand Canyon. But it was back on the road for us and heading home!