On my second day of travel, I headed north and east so I could visit one of my favorite destinations – Petrified Forest National Park. Not only am I fascinated by the petrified wood – from tree chunks to tiny pebbles – dotting the barren landscape, I also love to wander throughout the rooms of the Painted Desert Inn, a National Historic Landmark, dating from the 1920s. (To be featured in the next post!)

Petrified wood is deep with color, patterns, even textures. No longer wood, these relics are fossils, once ancient wood turned into rock crystals.

The petrified fossils are scattered about the park, but they are protected by federal laws. There are reminders throughout the park, reminding visitors to look, not touch.

Petrified rocks are available for sale in nearby towns, specimens mined from privately owned land. Of course, I had to stop at my favorite petrified rock shop, Jim Gray’s in Holbrook, Arizona.  There is something ancient and sacred about a carrying a small piece of rock in my pocket that is a 100 million years old.

So I added a few last-chance talismans to this year’s Arizona collection of trinkets.

The Petrified Forest is only a small part of the Painted Desert, an irregularly formed crescent that stretches from western Arizona to central New Mexico.

Pale purple, gray blue and off white striations in the rock at the Petrified Forest add interest to the badlands scenery. These colors came from iron deposits in places with no oxygen, typically submerged in stagnant water in prehistoric marshes. The deep red layers indicate a dry and hot climate in the presence of oxygen. The various layers date from 50 to 200 million years ago, time enough for oceans and swamps to turn to desert a few times over.

I drove through the park, and stopped at every pull-off and a few extra middle-of-the-road photographs. Happily, the park had few visitors on an early morning in late April, and so there were few cars to worry about. And then I drove on the entrance ramp that leads directly from the Visitor Center to I-40 and headed towards New Mexico!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.    She is traveling cross-country and blogging about her travels — whenever she is in a motel with internet and awake, concurrently.