We recently spent a day exploring Petrified Forest National Park, which was the final national park in Arizona left on our list.

We drove from Albuquerque, New Mexico, into northeast Arizona, following our GPS instructions to the park entrance. Pro tip: there is both a north and south entrance to this park with a single road running through it. We arrived at the north entrance, but given we needed to head north to our hotel that night, we decided to drive to the southern entrance and then slowly make our way north through the park, stopping at some key spots along the way.

Since we were already at the Painted Desert Visitor Center at the park’s north entrance when we made this discovery, we decided to check out the store and watch the park video. The museum is under construction so it was fairly quick to scan our park pass, grab a map, and get our bearings before starting our drive.

We drove to the south entrance and officially started our time in the park at the Rainbow Forest Museum, which focuses on the history of this area and has a number of paleontology exhibits.

There is a short (~.4 mile/.6 km) loop hike directly behind the museum called Giant Logs that – surprise! – takes you along a series of petrified stumps and logs. I’ve seen petrified wood before, but I was really impressed with the bright colors on display thanks to all the minerals in these pieces.

Brian saw another nearby hike on our map, but we had to ask one of the rangers where to access the trail. We were able to remain parked at the Rainbow Forest Museum and hike over a nearby bridge to the trailhead for the Long Logs & Agate House.

The hike to the Agate House is out-and-back, but you can include a loop around the Long Logs to bring the hike to 2.6 miles (4.2 km), plus the walk to and from the visitor center.

We started at the Agate House where I was disappointed to learn that we were seeing a reconstructed version made from the petrified wood. We’ve run into this at a few parks of late – it was common practice for the people managing these sites in the early 1900s to rebuilt and repair things they believed would be of interest to tourists. Well intended, but they’ve since learned that many of these reconstructions are inaccurate. This turned out to be the case at the Agate House, which features room for windows that they’ve since learned would not have been part of these structures.

We carried on to the Long Log loop, which lived up to its name. It was amazing to see how many trees were still situated as they had fallen.

A similar stop just north of this area called Crystal Forest also had impressive logs that were relatively in tact.

While this area is known for the quartz crystal that developed in the logs in this specific area, I was more impressed by the sheer amount of petrified wood at this location – way more than we expected. The .75 mile (1.2 km) paved loop took us right alongside the wood with some views of the painted desert beginning off in the distance.

We drove north to another nearby stop called the Agate Bridge, but it wasn’t that impressive. The pictures of the bridge as they originally found it are very cool, but they’ve since poured a concrete bridge underneath the petrified wood to hold it in place. If you’re tight on time, I’d skip the stop.

We did enjoy the next stop north called Blue Mesa where we drove the 4 mile (6.4 km) loop to see the colorful geography as we entered the Painted Desert section of the park.

As we pulled in we spotted some deer along one of the few grassy hills in this area – the only wildlife we ended up seeing in this park!

Another quick but enjoyable stop was Newspaper Rock, which features 650 petroglyphs – some more than 2,000 years old.

Bring your binoculars! We were surprised to find that the rock is situated well below the viewing platform, and it’s not easy to see the petroglyphs with your bare eye. Brian had the camera so we were able to zoom in on it – as you can see, there are designs everywhere.

It was a bit of a drive to our next stop at the Route 66 Alignment where a 1932 Studebaker marks the spot where Route 66 used to cut through the park.

Today, interstate 40 runs through this area following the old Route 66 closely in places and overlapping it entirely in others. The park road we were driving actually runs under the freeway near this pulloff.

Our final stop was at the Painted Desert Overlook and Painted Desert Inn near the north entrance to the park. Unfortunately we arrived just after the inn closed for the day – bummer!

The inn was built in the 1920s and is now designated a national historical landmark. Although it no longer functions as an inn, it’s home to a museum that highlights the building’s history as well as information about the old Route 66.

We ended up spending more time than we anticipated in this park and wished we had even more time to explore more of the stops and hikes.

The park information does a nice job of suggesting which stops to prioritize if you only have a few hours, a half a day, or an entire day to explore. Hopefully my highlights will also be useful as you sort out how much time to allocate during your upcoming visit!