I’m sorry I’m really late on this post. In all honestly I simply forgot about it. Our visit to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest in northern Arizona was part of our Sedona & Grand Canyon trip. You can click on each of those links to read about those.
The Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National park is about 2 hours east of Sedona just outside Holbrook, Arizona. We had flown into Phoenix picked up a rental car and drove 2 hours north to Sedona which was our main base for this trip. There are two entrances to the park and we decided to start at the I-40 entrance and drive down through the entire park to exit at the other end on Hwy 180.
The northern half of the park where we started is the Painted Desert. We parked the car at the start of a short mile long trail that goes around the south rim of the canyon. The views are amazing! On the way back to the car we moved a little more into the desert and off the rim so the kids could really see the terrain and ecosystem. Lorelei even spotted a jackrabbit.
Once back to the car we followed the road south to the other half of the national park which is dedicated to the Petrified Forest. The petrified forest is made from trees that were exposed to so much water and sediment they turned to stone.
We exited the national park from the opposite end from where we started so that we made sure we saw everything. This is a really great national park for everyone because you can really get out into the desert for adventure or you can stay in your car and drive from one end of the park to the other without missing anything so there’s definitely something for everyone’s comfort level.
Before heading back to Sedona we stopped in Holbrook to eat at Tom & Susie’s diner. This is a diner in the old Route 66 and it was sooo good! To top it off there’s an entire case full of pies made fresh every day! This was a nice littke unexpected pit stop for us!
Raising Rowletts 