Petrified Forest National Park

As soon as the sun went down last night the wind picked up and made falling asleep in our shaking tent difficult.  After a restless night sleep, Carter woke me up at 6am.  It was 7am our time, so it wasn’t so bad.  We were showered and out of the campground by 8am.  Gavin and Renee did get to climb some sand dunes before we left.  When we crossed the Arizona boarder we gained another hour, putting us at Petrified Forest National Park at 8am.  It was a beautiful park and the petrified logs were amazing.  The kids completed the junior ranger program and earned their badges.  We stopped at a lot of scenic overviews and did some short hikes.  We left the park at 1:30 and drove to the east entrance of The Grand Canyon.  Our first stop in the Grand Canyon was the watchtower.  The view was so beautiful with a storm approaching.  The rain hit on our drive to the visitors center, which we didn’t make it to before it closed.  It did let up when we got to our camp, so after another dinner of sandwiches we put up our tent.   We did see some elk on the way to our camp and two babies.  They were running around playing and making the cutest noises.  There is a ranger presentation tonight that we are going to go to.  I am already exhausted, but if I don’t wear out the kids completely before they lay down in the tent, they won’t let me sleep anyway.  So far they haven’t been fighting too much.  Renee got all offended that she couldn’t be in the center of a picture, but other that they are doing really well.  We are staying at the Grand Canyon for two nights, so it will be nice to have a day without any driving.

Sand Dunes in Gallup, NM

Painted Desert

The kids in Petrified Forest National Park 

Painted Desert Inn

Raven 

View of Route 66

Puerco Pueblo

petroglyphs carved in the stone

Puerco Pueblo

Our first glimpse of petrified wood.

Renee displaying the wood.

I love this one of the kids on the petrified wood.

Blue Mesa

Hiking the Blue Mesa

holding petrified wood

Huge piece of petrified wood. 

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest logs.

We were really impressed with the length of some of the logs.

Getting sworn in as junior rangers

Grand Canyon watchtower.

elk