Petrified Forest

After visiting Saguaro, my friends and I headed to Petrified Forest, a remote national park in northeastern Arizona. This park gets its name from the petrified logs that are littered across the landscape, which have become crystalized by natural processes over millions of years. It was really cool to get to see these petrified logs up close, especially since the details are incredibly neat to study. The terrain here feels somewhat barren, but at the same time, there are colorful badlands, mesas, and buttes that abound and stretch out across valleys you can explore on a variety of trails. One of the coolest areas of the park is the Blue Mesa area, where formations of blue, purple, and violet rise up from the ground like elements of an alien landscape. After exploring the park all day, we also got to see the Milky Way Galaxy late at night from right outside of the park, as the dark skies here and lack of light pollution are perfect for stargazing!