Petrified Forest & Winslow AZ

Our day begins in Holbrook, visiting the Wigwam Motel, 15 Tee Pee's arranged in a semi circle with classic cars (unrestored) parked at each unit. This is one of 2 of these motels on Route 66.
We then headed out to The Petrified Forest National Park, only about 25 minutes from our Hotel. The road in the park is 28 miles long, I would estimate we spent about 3 hours in this park. It was full of beautiful vistas and has more Petrified Wood than anywhere in the world. It also encompasses the painted desert. Noel described it best when she said...

"It is astounding the beauty of nature untouched by time"
There were many turnouts for pictures, this park was stunning! I will list them in the order we saw them and maybe you can identify some of the pictures.
We first saw the Rainbow Forest, the section with the most Petrified wood. Then we went on to Crystal Forest where there were smaller pieces strewn about that glittered in sunlight. Next was the Blue Mesa, a Mesa than had many colors but with a blue tint. Agate Bridge, a Petrified log that formed a bridge (now reinforced with concrete) The Tee Pees, Mesa's that look like Tee Pees. Jasper Forest, more Petrified Wood. Next Newspaper rock, this was hard to see because of the bright sunlight, but I got 1 or 2 close-ups of the over 650 Petroglyphs below us, some up to 2000 years old. A tribute to Route 66, they have empty telephone poles tracing the original route of 66. And finally the Painted Desert, brilliant hues of reds and oranges.

We headed to Winslow, we had lunch in the Historic and restored La Posada Hotel, and then went to the corner to see the tribute to "Standin on the Corner in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see, it's a girl my lord in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me". And of course we stood on the corner!
About 25 miles from Winslow, we went to the Meteor Crater National Monument, on this spot about 50,000 years ago a Iron-Nickle Meteorite travelling about 26000 miles per hour, hit the earth. Estimated to be 150 foot across and weighing several hundred thousand Tons, it had the force 20 million tons of TNT. It created a crater 700 hundred feet deep, and 4000 foot across. It was unknown for many years what caused it. In 1902 Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer purchased 2 square miles of land containing the crater, with the intent of mining Iron there. He spent 26 years trying to find what he believed would be the valuable solid piece that created the hole.

He drilled and excavated and found nothing. The Meteor had been Vaporized when it struck, there was nothing there. It was finally proven in 1960 that it was formed by a meteorite. The land is still privately owned. Oh one more thing, 102 degrees today!!
Then we headed on a side trip off Route 66 to see the Grand Canyon and we are spending tonight in Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and will head out in the morning to see the Canyon.