Marco Paulo: One Last Park

We left Gallup this morning and stopped by a little donut shop on the way out. It's not the kind of place you would end up by accident but Westend Donut & Deli sure had a nice selection of donuts. The donuts were great, my dad would have loved it.

The drive to Petrified Forest National Park was easy. The highways here are very flat, mostly smooth, and have very high speed limits. We cruised at 75 to 80 mph (that's about 130 km/h). I hear there are a few places where the limit is actually higher. Add to this the fact that traffic was light this time of year without the usual tourists and everything was fine. It seemed like every other vehicle on the road was a truck and trailer, but that just keeps us at Michelin going, after all trains can't deliver goods everywhere.

The park was neat but the emphasis when entering was clearly on the fragile and limited nature of the petrified wood. We were constantly reminded not to collect petrified wood, and for good reason. They estimate that as much as a ton leaves the park illegally every month. I can't understand some people.

The park also has a section dedicated to Route 66, on which we drove for a few miles as we headed out of Gallup. It's not all concrete teepees and classic diners, but it is a piece of Americana none the less.

My favorite part of the park was the Crystal Forrest where hundreds of petrified trees were scattered about. Isabelle enjoyed it too. The colours and textures of the fossils was varied and stunning. Despite what I said above it is still a hands on park where you are encouraged to feel the fossils as long as you stay on the trails.
There were more petroglyphs as well including one called Newspaper Rock that was very impressive.

The Queen of the Backseat completed another Junior Ranger program and came away with a badge and a patch. For those of you who don't know, most national parks have a Junior Ranger Program where kids of all ages are invited to complete an age appropriate activity booklet while traveling through the park. It helps to make it a more interactive adventure for everyone. At the end the booklet is reviewed by a Park Ranger and questions are usually asked of the child to make sure they understood, mostly things like: Why is it important to protect the park, why shouldn't we feed the animals, what was the best part, and so on. The junior Ranger then takes an oath to protect the park and respect the environment and usually ends up with a badge, or even better, a patch. The ranger usually tries to sneak in a part about always cleaning their room but it never takes.

Tomorrow should be the Phoenix Zoo and the Arizona Science Center if all goes well, and maybe even an H&M for Jane.

Here are the pictures:

The badlands as we entered the park from the north

The Junior Ranger at work

Another panorama (it's not the same as being there)

An old clunker we found in the park on Route 66

Two of the biggest ravens I've ever seen who went straight to the back of the car as if we were going to drop some snacks. These two and the others we saw all through our trip were very intelligent birds.