Road Trip: Southwest

Day 4: Friday, April 25, 2025 - Petrified Forrest NP, and Winslow, AZ

Day's statistics:
Weather: upper 80s, sunny, breezy
Steps: Steve 9,807; Linda 5,743
Travel: 195 miles

Every once in a while we have to get up early beause of timed entry somewhere, a long day / drive, or whatever.
This morning, at 6:09, we awoke. But not by choice. But because a woman had her damn little dog in the lobby and the thing wouldn't stop yalping. As she probably considered it "an emotional support animal", the hotel probably couldn't do anything about it...

Breakfast was decent, as there was eggs and sausage on the buffet this morning.

After eating, brushing, and packing up, we loaded the car and headed out.

Petrified Forrest National Park was the first stop of the day, and it was only a tad (a tad being about ten minutes) more than an hour away.
While we usually try to drive no more than about three hours per leg, this might seem close, especially compared to last night's jaunt to Pinetop. However, after the drive to Petrified Forrest, we still had to get ourselves to Flagstaff - which was two hours from the park. So one hour before the park, and two hours after the park: three total. And that's how we roll.
In this neck of the woods dessert, there are what are probably homesites scattered across the land, widely spaced apart, with little to no ammenities nearby (meaning we would be driving for a half-hour [or more] without passing a gas station, restaurant, market, or anything, and then, off the highway, here and there were trailers, campers, and small homes.

We did drive through a couple small towns too, one with a cute little church in it too.

Coincidentally, the topography of the region started to change a bit too, as we got closer to the park.


We basically entered the park through the south end, and drove north.
The second of eleven parks we were going to visit this trip, added to our list of parks visited.


We parked, entered the VC, and got our stamp - for this unit...

Behind the VC we eventually took a selfie (put here for convenience).

The area behind the VC had a number of trees and tree pieces.
Petrified wood is regular fiber wood that has transformed into a stone-like material through a process called permineralization. It resembles raw quartz crystals.
The fallen trees look like they are sliced, or cut, like logs. But when they fell, or broke, they broke across the tree at the path of least resistance - which is across the narrow part, not the length.
There were some, and the largest exceeded six feet in diameter.














After viewing the petrified forest garden, we got back into the car and headed further into the park for more sites. And more sights.










Eventually, we came upon another large area with a number of different trees and minerals called the Crystal Forest. While there was an almost-mile long hiking loop, we only made our way to the pavilion and back - a few hundred yards.






There was another pull out called Agate Bridge (though the placard was much larger, I zoomed in for readability).




After the Agate Bridge, while we were still in the Petrified Forest NP, most of the spots there was more variations in topography - including hills / mountains, and canyons / gorges - than there was petrified wood.
Further on was Blue Mesa.
This pull out, as with so many others - both in this NP and other - had trails that people could walk to get up close and personal with the environment.






On the way to the next pull out, we saw some more amazing sights, some of which resenbled the Badlands.










The next pull out was called Newspaper Rock.
What was particularly interesting at this stop was that there were [more] petraglyphs.
We were about fifty (?) feet, maybe, above the rocks. Admittedly, even with a placard pointing out where the glyphs were supposed to be, it was still difficult to see them.


It wasn't until I was putting this together that I saw so many petraglyphs that I saw them when I zoomed in on the rocks!


As we neared the end of the park, we passed over Interstate 40 that, at this spot, was both i40 and the old Route 66.
Just on the north side of the bridge was a Route 66 monument that included the shell of an old car, and Route 66 stamped into a concrete bench. There was also a Petrified Forest placard here too.





The last portion of the park was an area called the "Painted Desert".




Four different landscape pans from some of the pullouts.

At the other end of the park was another VC. There were also a couple more stamps to acquire as well - one for the Painted Desert, and the other for Historic Route 66.


We stopped by to use the facilities before we hit the road again.

About a half-hour down the road we stopped in a small town called Holbrook.
"When you absolutely, positively have to stab someone overnight..."

When organizing the trip, we had already planned on stopping in Holbrook. And we sought out Romo's Mexican Restaurant.
We parked in the dirt lot next door and headed inside.


We went inside and were seated, and given menus.
For us, it wa a little late for lunch - about an hour late - but the place was pretty busy.
It wasn't a "wide" facility, but it was deep as the seating went around the corner to the left.



We were served chips and salsa as an appetizer.
Linda had the Navajo Taco (taco fillings served on a fried flat bread rather than in a taco shell), and I had the ground beef burrito.



A couple of the customers included a priest / minister, and a local Sheriff.
Admittedly, the table service was a little slow, but that looked like it was because there were only two servers and they were busy. Plus everything is made to order so it takes time to prepare.
And the food was really good, so there's that.
As noted on the side of the restaurant in the image above, it was located on the famed Route 66.
This marker was across the street.

We decided to take a quick visit to the Navajo County Historical Society's Museum, which was just a couple blocks away.
Expectedly, there was a lot of local history highlighted inside the old city hall / police station, but we enjoyed the time we were there anyway.
We started on the first floor, in the old jail, and made our way up to the second floor.

We didn't spend too much time in the museum - it wasn't that big, but we did more of a cursory scan than a deep dive as it dealt with local history (not that there's anything wrong with it) and we didn't have that much vested in it.
After the museum, we headed out of town to the next destination.
On the way out of town we passed this rather unusual motel. At first we drove past it, then the thought process caught up to me and I did a uturn to go back and get another look - all the while the GPS was telling us to make another uturn. We eventually did... I doubt all the old cars were from motel guests, but I guess it's possible.

On the way to our next destination, about a half-hour away, we saw a large wind farm. It is a little hard to tell how many turbines there are because they are intersperced with telephone poles / tension lines.

We saw on, we think it was, CBS Sunday Morning, a story about the La Pasada Hotel in Winslow. Aaaaaand since we were going to be passing through Winslow anyway, we decided to stop by.


We parked in the lot, and made our way inside, passing a "pollinator habitat" and a patio area.




The hotel was well appointed, and included a restaurant.







There was a Judy Garland movie called The Harvey Girls that was based on actual employees of the La Pasada Hotel.

We finished our brief tour inside, and headed back out to the car.



"Well, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona..."

Though there was - we learned after the fact - a specific corner for this, WE were unique and did our own thing.
On the way back to the highway, we saw this Route 66 marker.

About another hour later and we were arriving in Flagstaff.
This was the first city of three wherein we were going to be staying more than one night, and the only one we'd be staying three nights.
We checked into our room at the Super 8.

After relaxing a bit, we brushed, and went to bed.

Dinner

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