Today we visited the Petrified Forest National Park. Portions of the park are within the Painted Desert. We watched the orientation video at the Visitor Center, then headed out for the 28-mile scenic park road. The first part of the road passes through portions of the Painted Desert. We stopped along the way to visit the Painted Desert Inn, built in the early 1900's, for early visitors to the area. It was later taken over by the park service and remodeled by the Civilian Conservation Corp. During part of its tenure, it was managed by the Fred Harvey Company for the National Park Service.
Snow from a couple of days ago.
Historic Painted Desert Inn
Painted murals inside the Inn.
A section of the park known as Puerco Pueblo contains remnants of an old 100-room pueblo built around 1250 AD and house nearly 1,200 people. There are a number of large boulders that contain petroglyphs.
We did not get a early start this morning, so we opted to skip the remainder of the drive and find a place to have lunch. Oh, where are the pictures of the petrified wood? Once you seen one, you have seen them all.
