Petrified Forest National Park and Flagstaff, AZ!

Holy guacamole.

Okay, we are at the point in our lives where we need to face the hard truth…

500 miles in one day, especially on consistently bumpy roads with absolutely nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, exciting to look at is just too far to drive in a day for a pair of 50+ year old unconditioned butts (that’s 500 miles of hard roads for the one that has an “irritable” bowel. And we all know that my bowel isn’t just irritable, it’s down right cranky).

Thankfully, we were both able to stay awake and we kept our bowels tamed long enough to make it to Flagstaff, Arizona, with a brief stop at Petrified Forest National Park. We’re not breathing a sigh of relief yet though because we know we have to unhook and still do a grocery store run that will feed five people for four days in Zion .

We expected, because of the name of the park, to see petrified trees, specifically in a petrified forest arrangement (this is not what we saw within the first 10 miles of the park so I felt the ADHD reaction building inside of Ben). There was barely a tree to be seen, petrified or not. I guess we can count the specimens in the visitor center, but they were more “logs” than “trees.”

Perhaps we didn’t go far enough into the park. That’s on us (notice how Ben says “we” and “us” like it was my choice not to go further into the park? I will admit that this particular park has similar qualities to other parks we’ve done the ADHD tour on, so I could see this tour going that way without asking. I just go with the flow these days lol).

Honestly, the stop was planned with a pretty brief “ADHD” agenda: Pee break, get the National Parker sticker, and take off. We like to call that…

Sticker and Split

Collectible and Cruise

Momento and Move On

Collectible and Kick on out of there

Chotchky and Charge

Knicknack and Not Going Back.

You get the point.

But it is not every day you get to see a petrified forest, nor do you get to see a national park! So we were optimistic.

But here is what we did see…

It was a bit like a smaller Grand Canyon that was filled with the stuff that you might find inside a water heater.

I’m not pooping on the National Park, I’m just saying we did not give it the time it probably deserves.

But the bathroom? It was wonderful.

See how happy Ann is?

Plus, it was nice to stretch our legs for a little while after three long days on I-40 and Ann enjoyed talking to an elder, Hopi Native woman, who was making jewelry in the lobby of the Painted Desert Inn, which is on the grounds of the visitor center. It’s a good thing I’m a fast-ish reader because Ben, after 30 seconds, had picked out and was paying for our sticker and a few postcards, while I was still frantically reading so I could soak in the history.

After Petrified Forest NP, we hammered out the last 115 miles to Flagstaff where we quickly realized that very low humidity (6%), very low temps at 33 degrees overnight, and very high elevation (7,000 feet) combined to make for very very very dry skin and dehydration headaches. A couple of liquid IV’s and liberal application of chapstick to all exposed surfaces and we were good to go!

We must have purchased these chips about 7,000 feet closer to sea level. They are about to go off like a teenager!

Not only did we survive the Walmart run to probably the most bizarrely arranged Walmart I’ve ever been to, but we stuffed our fridge and freezer so very full that we PRAY the kids all make their flights in a couple of days. If they don’t make it, Ben and I will have food for a month.

We also survived the chilly night and headed on out of there the next morning, bound for Zion National Park, where we’ll finally meet up with the kids to start our adventures.