Painted Desert & Petrified Forest, Arizona

November 26, 2013

Yesterday, the big blue skies of Santa Fe opened up and we were finally able to safely leave and make our way into Arizona.  After, many minutes of strategizing and analyzing the maps, our course will take us along the northern parts of these southwest states and then on the return trip home we will stop along to see the highlights in the south.

We left around 10am and I found the drive from Santa Fe, thru Albuquerque, and into Arizona to be both beautiful and quick.  I loved driving thru the snowcapped mountains and then transitioning into the red rocks and desert feel of Arizona.  We arrived at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest at around 2pm, made some lunch, and started making the 29 mile drive thru the park. 

Only one national park in the country includes and protects a section of historic Route 66: the Petrified Forest National Park with one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands of the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, and displays of over 200-million-year-old fossils.  A broad region of rocky badlands encompassing more than 93,500 acres, this vast landscape features rocks in every hue – from deep lavenders and rich grays to reds, oranges and even pinks.

How do you like it?  I call it the Painted Desert.  I painted it myself! Nah, I’m just kidding.  The Painted Desert is a real desert that we went to on our way to the Petrified Forest National Park.  So, it was a place we drove around and saw all these red rocks and dead grass.  There was an overlook that you could see for a few miles.  As we drove on, the Painted Desert slowly turned into the Petrified Forest.

I think we’re in the Forest now.  My parents pointed out all these petrified logs on the ground.  I was expecting it to be actual trees! Instead, there were only logs on the ground.  The logs had turned to stone, that’s what petrified means.  They had some colors and it was just really cool.

~Jack

A natural canvas millions of years in the making, no one event shaped the Painted Desert. Instead, the area – which is home to many memorable formations and features – serves as proof of the earth’s volatility: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and sunlight all combined to create the Painted Desert. Deposits of clay and sandstone, stacked in elegant layers, play with the setting Arizona sun in an altering display of colorful radiance.
Both the Navajo and Hopi people have lived in the region for hundreds of years, but it was Spanish Colonialists who gave this landscape the name we know it by today – El Desierto Pintado.

My favorite time to shoot, as much as any photographer, are those early morning sunrises and the late afternoon when the color of the light is golden.  This, however, does not always work with our family plan! That’s OK, but I like when I get lucky with my timing, like last night when we happened to be exiting the park just as the sun was setting.  If any of my photography friends are wondering why I am shooting in the middle of the day, this is the reason!

On our trek to Sedona today, we will jump back on Rte 66 to see a few more iconic treasures, like the Wigwam Motel and you better bet I will be standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona!

~Linda