Canyons Adventure - September 2023

Drive and Petrified Forest - September 8-9, 2023

We headed out Friday morning for a long drive after getting the kids off to school and finishing up house chores. We packed sandwiches for the car, so we could make better time. This was our longest one day of driving on this road trip -- 11 hours. We drove from DFW, Texas to Gallup, NM the first day, going through Amarillo and Albuquerque. Gallup was almost to the end of New Mexico, the far west, so almost to Arizona. We stopped at Dairy Queen for a blizzard, me, and ice cream cone, Travis. Yum!

We stayed at Royal Holiday Motel. Check-in was easy; cash deposit only required if not paying with a credit card. Though published on Orbitz as required, so I prepared. We had king bed, TV that we did not get to work--something went wrong while trying to pick from the on screen tv guide, microwave, and mini fridge. The vanity was on the other side of a wall with the rest of the bathroom in its own room. I was surprised in the middle of the night that there was light outside the bathroom room. It lit the bathroom well in the middle of the night, so much so, that I could see a big black beetle on our white bathmat. I tossed it with beetle into the tub (we are night showerers, so were done with the facilities); luckily, I never saw the beetle again. Yikes!  

We stopped at Lowe's grocery for that night's dinner (with the microwave and fridge confirmed) and a picnic for the Petrified Forest National Park the next day. Most of our food for camping we bought and packed from home. I got a chimichanga for tonight and Lunchable for tomorrow. I put it in the fridge with a reminder on my phone to remember it in the morning.  

The Petrified Forest's did not open unto 8am, with a closed gate before. I have seen that National Parks normally allow to enter before opening, but we could not get into 8am here. It was an hour earlier here than where we stayed, so an early start would have been good to get more time at the park. From the east, going to the north entrance from I-40 is the only reasonable option. We drove and visited north to south and exited at the south side. I still manage to mess up the timing, so Travis found us another park to hike in first. I was so confused on the time the full trip -- we left CDT/GMT-5 to NM MDT/GMT-6 to AZ, which does not observe daylight savings time (DST), so MST/GMT-7 or California time now. The Navajo Nation does observe DST, so on MDT too. We booked Antelope Canyon through them, but they operate the tours on AZ non-DST time to not confuse people, which thoroughly confused me. 

Stopped for our obligatory sign picture. After, we stopped at the visitor center and bought an National Parks Annual Pass at the pay booth. Still north of I-40, we stopped for some panorama views.  

First, we hiked the Blue Mesa Trail across I-40 on the south side. This was a 1 mile loop with elevation drop at the beginning and increase at the end. It was a very nice hike; the colored hills looked like Death Valley National Park in California. We saw some petrified wood. Dog were allowed, and we saw some on the trail. Then, we hiked the Crystal Forest, seeing lots of petrified wood some with crystal formations. The broken full tree petrified logs were cool. 

Lastly, we visited the Rainbow Forest Museum and hiked Giant Logs behind it. On there trail, there is an available trail guide to borrow with the points of interest numbered. The is Giant Log, which was named Old Faithful. I don't know why; sadly, I don't remember from the trail guide and just found it on the NPS website later.  

Before leaving, we had our picnic lunch in a picnic area in front of the visitor center. Since this tree was probably getting more than its fair share of water, a raven came for a drink. We were warned that we would see a lot at the Grand Canyon and needed to keep our food from them. Here we were warned of bees, which we also avoided. There was a bottle filling station, so we refilled before hitting the road again. 

Next up...Grand Canyon

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