Originally,  the Petrified Forest National Park was intended as a soft layover to break up a six hour drive from Albuquerque, NM to Sedona, AZ, but it quickly became apparent after rounding the first bend of the 28-mile park road, that the vibrant beauty of the painted desert and the pop-color collage of the rainbow forest provided a photographic feast that justified more than a peripheral drive-by. We spent half a day immersed in inspiration.

A “tapestry of time” infuses all the turnouts, loops and trails, dating from: prehistoric remnants of dinosaur fossils, to petroglyphs of Ancestral Americans, to grazing habitats supporting Southwestern settlers, to the crossroads of historic Route 66. Every visitor through the ages has put their visual time-stamp on the landscape, turning our stop-over into a hike through history.