Petrified Forest National Park

 So Thursday, July 7th, our ultimate destination was to get to Cornville, Arizona, but first...I bet you can't guess what should come first??  Yes, another national park!  That makes three parks in three days!  This time Petrified Forest National Park (in Arizona).  We drove into the park to first check out the Painted Desert.  It looked like a rainbow-painted crater field.  And check out that crisp, blue sky in contrast!

I told Penn and Jansen to pose here with the acres and acres of Painted Desert beyond.  It was gorgeous and seemed to go on for miles.  And I also just wanted to take a minute to praise these two youngest.  They have been such amazing travelers.  They have the back seat, so less leg room than the other boys (plus we all know that back seat riding is the worst spot in the car).  And they never complain.  They are happy, content and chill.  Also Penn is such a helper to Jansen.  Passing him things, setting up his iPad when it's time to watch shows, helping him troubleshoot frustrations.  The two of them work on little activities back there together.  I'm just so proud of these two riders. 

In the picture above the boys are standing at the back of the current Painted Desert Inn.  And below they are standing at what was the original front door to the Inn (now the back door).  The Inn was redesigned in a more native Pueblo style, but originally it was built out of petrified wood as that is the prominent natural resource building material in the area (obviously!).  They left the petrified wood construction exposed by this original front door.  We were impressed!  And personally I like the look better the old way.

After the Painted Desert, we took the boys to the Painted Desert Visitors Center.  We were pretty low on provisions in the van cooler, so we had decided to spring for lunch at the Painted Desert Diner.  It was so-so, but we were happy to get some fresh air (and we played our National Parks Trivia game!).

After some nourishment we were ready to move on through the park.  At our next stop we go to see petroglyphs that dated from between 1250 and 1380 AD.  That is pretty incredible to me that there are markings (very obvious and clear and some look like stick figures or smiley faces like we draw today!) on these rocks that would last through all the elements for this long. Zoom in to get a good look, some pictures are more obvious than others.

My men observing.  Honestly they were all super impressed by these petroglyphs.  They definitely have their stops where they are less engaged, and I get it, we are taking in a lot on this trip!  But I love it when they have an appreciation for something we are getting to see.  Although let's also note that appreciating the stop does not mean not being ridiculously silly or loud.  They must have been stir crazy this day or perhaps just tired of driving, heat and parks because oh my goodness, they were so silly, loud and honestly, rather obnoxious!!  We definitely had a family chat about being more considerate of those around us trying to enjoy the park and the natural beauty and not ruining that with boy banter!

Also at this stop we got to see the walls of the dwellings of the people that drew those petroglyphs.  They are now filled with sand, but it's still incredible to me that these "structures" stand and you can envision them living here within their walls.  Also, after spending just a few hours in this arid, unforgiving climate, I do not understand how they made life work here!  Where is the water?!?

We piled back in the minivan with more ridiculousness and then arrived shortly at Agate Bridge.  A huge, petrified log that makes a bridge.  A cement structure was erected to support it in the early 1900's.

The final stops in the park gave us opportunities to see the petrified logs up close.  It's amazing.  Over time and with the affects of the elements and volcanic ash, these logs have really turned to quartz!  They lay in pieces all over the place.  The stops are named forests and you can see they must have been forests at one time, but now it's like Mars with rock stumps strewn about.  Like another world!

Parental fatigue and heat exhaustion combined to lead me to take less pictures of the varied landscapes.  We passed incredible "Blue Mesas" and "Flattops", washbeds, desert-like plains with scrub brush and so many hills, boulders and petrified logs of course.  The variation was incredible!

I did manage to get this picture of my cute explorer in the "forest."

We left the park early afternoon feeling very satisfied with our experience and super happy to let the boys cool off in the AC and turn on their devices so we could have a little peace and quiet!  Phew!  It was a weird, intense experience.  Maybe Petrified Forest National Park is another world and it makes your kid act super silly?!?  Or maybe it was the heat.  Anyways, we regrouped!  And the drive ended up being incredible.  First we were driving with flat plains with views of mountains in the distance watching dirt devils pop up in the fields beside us.  Then eventually we drove through the Coconino National Forest and climbed up to almost 10,000 feet!  The landscape became lush and full of tall Ponderosa pines and when we got towards the top of our ascent the view was incredible of the mountains in front and to both sides.  We gradually made our descent into the Verde River Valley where we will stay for the next four days.  Oh we needed this!  Check out the sunset views.  We are a bit weary after three packed driving and park days.  So first thing here is to focus on rest (well, at least for a day).