After entering Petrified Forest from the southern entrance and exploring nearly every stop along the main park road, we found ourselves smack dab in the pinkest and prettiest area yet: the Painted Desert.

Painted Desert Overlook

We headed to the parking area for the main off-the-road overlook and soaked it all in. In front of us, the sun was beaming on the pink desert and making it turn neon. Behind us, the thunderstorm continued to roll in and the shadows it cast had become closer than ever.

Our sleep plans for the night included dispersed camping in the Expedition in the random/sand nothingness outside of the park. I started to have serious doubts that the rain would allow that to happen…

Next on the list was the Painted Desert Inn to grab another National Parks passport stamp and see if we could find another geocache on Ike’s list.

Painted Desert Inn

As a lover of all things pink, I was a big fan.

Along the outer corridor of the building, you can spy inside of the windows to see the rooms done up how they would’ve been when the Inn was in operation.

In the back of the building is the most gorgeous view overlooking all of this.

I dunno how it’s actually those colors. It’s wild. I’d love to come back here on a cloudless day to see it in its full glory.

The admired the pretty ceiling, learned about that awesome huge petroglyph, found the geocache, and stumbled into this jaw-dropping view from the patio.

Entering the park from this entrance must be so cool, because you’re greeted with this before getting to the Inn:

And I feel like those intense ruby red colors would be such a good introduction to this place.

We stopped at the final visitor center and grabbed dinner at the little restaurant attached to the gift stop. By this point, it was torrential down-pouring and I knew there was so way we were driving out into the desert for any sleep spot.

It’d taken the entire day for the thunderstorm to reach us.

I quickly just used Expedia to book a quick Motel 6 in Holbrook, AZ – the gateway town for Petrified Forest – and breathed a sigh of relief knowing we had a plan for the night and now were in no rush to make it anywhere to get situated before dark.

I love random roadside stops, so when we saw a double-headed dinosaur statue on the side of the highway, I couldn’t help but pull off and see what was going on. And we read there were ostriches.

Meet Stewart’s Petrified Wood Trading Post.

We were greeted by the son of the owner (she’s in the photos) who was nice enough to come down from the house on the property and met us at the door of the shop to unlock it for us.

We took our time walking around, learning about the history of this store, and admiring all of the fossils and petrified wood which low-key were better than in any of the Petrified Forest visitor centers we’d just been in.

There were no ostriches anymore unfortunately, but I’m glad we stopped. The land/store seems like it’s for sale, so who knows how much longer it’ll be there to visit.

We do a ton of road trips so you’d think I’d been to a Motel 6 before, but this was my first time. Usually I try to support the cute, clean, mom & pop motels. But this wasn’t bad at all and the shower looked like a tubular space ship.

More about Petrified Forest via the National Park Service:
https://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Stewart’s Petrified Wood Trading Post:
https://www.petrifiedwood.org/
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13649

This Motel 6 location:
https://www.motel6.com/en/home/motels.az.holbrook.4361.html