Positively Petrifying!

We spent the night in Holbrook, Arizona and the next morning we got up early to have breakfast at Joe and Aggies on Route 66:

Then it was off to the Pertrified Forest National Park! We stopped at a rock store on our way and were stunned by how many geodes and pieces of petrified wood and fossils there were!

The park was awesome. At the visitors center the park ranger encouraged us to become Junior Rangers! So we went on a scavenger hunt through the park filling out the Junior Ranger booklet. It was actually an awesome way to see it all! 

The petrified wood was originally from the Triassic period. It was covered by sediment and fossilized. Then the continents shifted and the sediment eroded, exposing the fossilized logs. 

The colors of the logs were amazing. 

The area was also home to primitive native tribes. We were able to walk through the ruins of a 100-room pueblo.

The park is also home to hundreds of ancient petroglyphs! It was so cool to see these drawings and imagine the interpretations. 

The north side of the park once had Route 66 running through it. 

The telephone poles running behind this car are all that is left of the road in this area. 

The main attraction for Route 66 travelers passing through was The Painted Desert. The Painted Desert Inn was an adobe hotel that is still standing. It was acquired by the park and now is a museum of what it may have been like for the Route 66 visitors to the beautiful Painted Desert. 

We stopped by the visitors center before leaving to turn in our Junior Ranger books. We were sworn in, took an oath, and received official Junior Ranger badges and patches. 

We also had a good laugh at these clocks that perfectly illustrate our time change confusion over the previous few days!

Onward toward Texas!