Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert

Arizona

After Winslow, we continued east along I-40 toward Petrified Forest National Park, one of the most surreal landscapes in the Southwest. Our first stop was the Rainbow Forest Museum & Visitor Center at the park’s southern entrance. Outside, the trails wound through fields of petrified logs—ancient giants turned to stone. The sun caught their polished surfaces, and each log shimmered like a cluster of jewels: amber, quartz, and streaks of turquoise frozen in time.

Kodi trotted ahead, sniffing the dry air as if he could still smell the forests that once stood here 200 million years ago. We followed the Giant Logs Trail and Crystal Forest Loop, marveling at how entire trees had been transformed into glittering stone.

From there, we drove the 28-mile scenic road north through the park, stopping at overlooks to photograph the otherworldly landscape. The colors shifted with the light—lavenders, rusts, and deep rose tones blending into the layered hills of the Painted Desert. At the Painted Desert Visitor Center, we walked through the historic Painted Desert Inn, once a 1930s oasis for travelers along Route 66, now a museum filled with murals and stories of early explorers who braved the desert in Model Ts.

By late afternoon, we rolled back onto the highway, the horizon stretching endless and pink ahead of us. Next stop: Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado—ancient cliff dwellings and the spirit of the Ancestral Puebloans waiting just beyond the state line.