As we continued our journey westward the temperature was dropping into the teens at night – much too cold for us in the van. We stopped in a small town on our way to Arizona to avoid some nasty weather, finding a decently priced hotel to spend the night. As we signed in, we noticed folks arriving for a wedding reception. Uh oh, we thought, are we in for a long night? Well, I wasn’t, but Jim, not so lucky. Somewhere around 2:00, he phoned down to the front desk to complain and thankfully the celebrating subsided so that he managed to get to sleep. Funny. I’m usually the one who wakes up at any noise at all, but not this night!
Come morning, we headed down for the breakfast included with our room – an actually decent breakfast for once. As we sat, Jim joked with some of the folks from the wedding who had been talking to each other about the fun reception. They were apologetic about keeping us up, but Jim, being the good guy he is, made light of it, saying we missed out on our golden opportunity to have some cake!
We checked out and went to the van, finding snow on the windshield – oh man! Why were we not in Tuscon where the temperature was in the 70’s?
Well, that reason was on our agenda for the next few days. Heading into Arizona, there were two important stops to be made before we could head south and into the warm weather we were missing. First, we needed to check out the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park and second (possibly more important in my mind) we needed to get to Winslow. If you are not of a certain age you may not be familiar with the Eagles and one of their more well known songs, Take it Easy, with the lyrics
“Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see. Its a girl my lord in a flat-bed Ford slowing down to take a look at me.”
Growing up and listening to this song, made Winslow the most important stop in Arizona for us. But today’s post is all about the Painted Dessert and Petrified forest, which we visited over the course of a couple of days, and my oh my, what a sight!
Our first visit was just after the storm we had avoided passed through, so the skies were cloudy and grey. We actually weren’t going to stop, thinking we should wait for a clear day, but when we stopped at the Visitor’s Centre, the fellow there suggested that after the rains the day before, the colours would be more vibrant, so off we went. Again, we were using our Senior’s Pass, so we didn’t have to worry about paying to get in for more than a day, which was a good thing. The Painted Desert is connected to the Petrified Forest by a long park road. Unfortunately, at that moment there was road work going on about halfway through, so we would have to get into the Petrified Forest from the other entrance, a very long drive around. So, for our first visit, we satisfied ourselves with the amazing views from the Painted Desert and amazing they were. There are many places to stop and gaze out and we stopped at them all. The pictures just don’t even capture how truly incredible the sight of these hills are. Red or blue, they stretched on for miles. It was freezing, but we got out anyways and walked into a valley to check out parts that were open. It was just spectacular. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.
On our way into the park, we came upon the Pained Desert Inn National Historic Landmark. This beautiful building would have been such a great place to stay back in the day when the official Route 66 came right through this park. We stopped in both times we were in the park to look at the amazing views and sights inside, and also to see different Navajo artists working there. I couldn’t resist when I saw the work of Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd. Her silver and copper cuffs were simply stunning and held such meaning, being engraved on the inside with symbols important to her people. I fell in love and since it was my birthday in a few days, we made the purchase – Happy Birthday to me!!!
On the following day, we drove back into the park from the southern entrance to see the petrified forest. It was even colder on this day and actually painful to get out and walk among the incredible trees laying in this part of the park. We stayed as long as we could stand the cold before jumping back into our warm van, but it was hard to resist getting out again and again at the different stops just to view these amazing artifacts.
Of course, as it’s a National Park, you are not allowed to collect any of the petrified pieces that are just laying all around you, but on our way out, we stopped in Holbrook where we had spotted a place that sold all sorts of rocks. It was kind of overwhelming as we wandered what looked like a never ending field of petrified wood and inside the store their amazing selection of pretty much any type of stone you might want to see. We added quite a few pounds to the van with our purchases here, but the cost was a pleasant surprise!
We were so enamoured with The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest it was hard to not spend another day here. But, the cold was finally getting to us. We had another day planned in Winslow and that was going to be it – on to warmer weather. But this is a magical place that will forever be in our hearts and minds and we will, for sure, return to once again look out over this spectacular scenery, but most likely on a warmer day.
