We depart the hotel at 8:10am, and it takes us just 20-minutes to drive to the southern entrance of the Petrified Forest National Park.

 

Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 346 square miles (at an elevation averaging 5,400-feet), encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands.

 

Three short walks enable us to get close up to views of the amazing petrified wood  (right) that is preserved by the park. One of the trails takes us to Agate House (left), a partially reconstructed Puebloan building, built almost entirely of petrified wood. The eight-room pueblo has been dated to approximately the year 900.

Crystal Forest Trail

The Tepees: layered blues, purples and greys created by iron, carbon,

manganese and other minerals stand in cone-shaped formations.

Whipple Point

The park's Painted Desert Inn (right) houses a Visitor Centre -

it is a Pueblo Revival-style structure containing a number of murals.

After driving a further 150-miles, we reach the El Morro National Monument in New Mexico. The park preserves an area where a 200-feet massive sandstone mesa (El Morro) rises from the valley floor. At the foot of the mesa a natural basin holds the area's only water - utilised for many years by travellers along an adjacent ancient trade route.

We walk the Inscription Rock Trail (above) with the assistance of a well-documented leaflet that picks out the notable carvings made by the historic Anasazi people and later European travellers.

Jeanette at El Morro's pool.

Our next destination is the El Malpais  National Monument. El Malpais means 'the badlands' in Spanish, a name that reflects the park's volcanic and other landscape features. On Highway 53 from El Morro, we cross the Continental Divide before finding the El Malpais Visitor Centre - here we are advised to visit the Sandstone Bluffs Overlook (above) and the La Ventana Natural Arch.

Using the Interstate, we then drive to the Hampton Inn in Albuquerque, and then get a good value meal at a down-market branch of the Golden Corral Restaurant. During a day that has been completely sunny and warm, we have driven a total of 344-miles.

Boca Negra Canyon

Petroglyph on the Macaw Trail.

Petroglyph on the Cliff Base Trail.

Petroglyph on the Mesa Point Trail.

On another sunny morning, and after a good breakfast at the Hampton Inn, we drive 15-miles to the Petroglyph National Monument just to the northwest of Albuquerque - the park preserves some 15,000 petroglyphs in a volcanic landscape just to the west of the Rio Grande River. Long ago, people discovered that chipping away the rocks' thin desert varnish revealed a lighter grey beneath and left a lasting mark. Images created in the rock centuries ago include animals, insects, and geometric designs. Some of the best are in the Boca Negra Canyon, accessed by the quite difficult Mesa Point Trail that wends its way between the rocks and boulders on which the petroglyphs are carved. We also explore the Macaw and Cliff Base Trails before departing from the park at 11:15am.