Park Number: 21/63

First Visited: May 9, 2011

You wouldn’t believe the sheer amount of trees—prostrate in the desert—resting forever solid as stone. It’s as if Medusa herself took family holidays here, showing no mercy as to what she set her vacationing eyes upon. The result: organic turned inanimate, timber turned bedrock.

What’s fun about this park is the layout; the property sits nicely between Interstate 40 and U.S Route 180. Entering Petrified Forest takes you smoothly from one road to the next. It’s also a compact, drive-through park and can be done in a hurry (though not recommended). But in the small acreage is a plethora of absurd geology to behold—one of the largest concentrations of petrified wood in the world. It’s also the windiest place I’ve ever been.

Petrified Forest is ancestral lands to the Pueblo Tribe.