A Short Visit to the Petrified Forest National Park

We left the Sedona area this morning and less than three hours later were pulling into the RV parking lot near the south entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park.

After setting up the VRRV for an overnight stay, we unhooked the Honda CR-V and left to go into the park so Martha could take a look around.

I've been to this park before: LINK and shot more pics then than I did today.

After a visit to the visitor center so Martha could get her Parks Passport stamped, we were approached in the parking lot by a couple of motorcycle riders.

Turns out they're tourists from Slovenia, Milan and Sabina, and touring Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles in four weeks.  They were running low on gas for their Harley and asked if we could spare them some.  You see, we still had the cargo carrier attached to the rear of the CR-V and one of the containers was a red gas can.

Milan cut a plastic drink bottle into a funnel and carefully poured gas into the Harley's gas tank while I held onto the funnel.

Milan turns on the Harley's dashboard to see

how many miles the added gas now provides.

Success!

Milan and Sabina

We said our goodbyes after exchanging contact info in terms of email addresses.

Martha and I then drove to the other end of the park and stopped here and there for views and sometimes pictures.  The light was quite flat and when the scenery was below clouds, it was quite dark also.

As I mentioned before, there's more pics available from the previous visit to this park.

One of the stops we made, which I hadn't done before, was to the Painted Desert Inn.  Here's some of the things that caught my eye inside.

Then and Now

Cool petroglyph: Hopi Mountain Lion

From back in the park's heyday I think...

In the Inn's dining room, there were a couple of large Hopi murals.  In the one below, my eye was drawn to the fierce animals the two Hopi boys had to deal with during their journey.

What animal is this?

Bear?

By this point in our camping trip, both Martha and I were "rocked out" so we didn't really spend much more time in the park.  We rested the rest of the afternoon away and will most likely displace tomorrow towards Albuquerque.