This day we awoke to rain, lots of it. Our plan was to see the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. In spite of the rain, we decided to move forward with our plans. I likened it to having a golf tee time. Even if it’s raining, you always go to the course because it might be very different there. So off we went.

The drive to our starting point took us between two large storms. It was hard to tell which way those were moving so we were just hoping for the best. Lucky for us the rains stayed away from where we were although we did have overcast skies throughout the duration of our day.

Starting at the Petrified Forest we looked around at the visitors’ center and watched their short film about the park. It was interesting to learn just how all these trees became petrified to begin with and to learn that there’s petrified wood in every state of the US as well as all around the world. This, however, is the largest and most concentrated example of petrified wood to be found.

Our disappointment in this day was that the sun wasn’t shining. This meant the Painted Desert didn’t offer the impressive array of colors it’s capable of showing. This photo shows some of the colorful mounds we found. I’m not sure the boys really got how incredible this place can actually be. Maybe that’s a reason to come again some time down the road…