Petrified Forest National Park is THE dopest thing I have seen this entire trip. This area of the country is also called the Painted Desert, and it’s easy to see why. Truly breathtaking landscape, everywhere you go. (Many die of asphyxiation from the breathtaking nature of the landscape.)
There are no campgrounds at the park, but you can camp out in the wild if you hike about a mile away from the parking lot. There is a big wilderness area for camping in the north of the park, and a big area in the south. We only tried the north – based on a drive around the rest of the park, I think we chose well.
All around us were beautiful, unique landscapes. Strange rock formations and dead trees turned to stone with time. There were petroglyphs carved by now gone people. When we finally set up our tent (after hiking for two miles and then struggling with some daunting winds) we knew the beauty of total silence and isolation. In the morning I woke up alone and walked amongst the hills around our tent, playing my recorder and trying to mimic the bird calls I heard.
The trailhead starts at this structure, which used to be an inn back when the land was under private management. Even miles into our hike, if we climbed up on a pile of rocks and looked back, we could see this inn – so we couldn’t get all that lost. 
This is the view from the hotel, more or less, and the land we are about to penetrate. 
We didn’t have to walk long before we found fragments of petrified trees dotting the Martian landscape. 
The soil is loose and crumbly in your hand … seems to be more or less a pile of rust. 
A weird rock formation that looked kind of like a door. 
There’s me, hiking on. 
The red hills rise before us. 
There used to be road and rail routes through the park – here the remains of a bridge. 
Petroglyphs, carved by the indigenous people who used to live here. 
Harsh landscape spreads out before us. 
A huge river run, a mile out. After this point, camping is allowed. 
Just a piece of wood. 
Beautiful rock formations abound. 
Patches of the ground are just littered with huge pieces of wood. There are little pieces all over the place, too. 
We had to pick our way through the stones. 
Along the path of a river run. 
The trees crystallize in interesting shapes. 
And here, one with a fragment of root. 
Walking along near our campsite. 
And here it is – two miles from where we started. That’s our tent in the upper-right-middle. Not another soul within a couple miles, or at least so it seemed.
The rest of the park we saw by car, mostly. We camped in Mars; we next drove to Venus. There was a three-mile hike around the blue mesa area, but below are just the pictures we could get without hiking into the area:
We drove around to several other sites, seeing new color combinations, some exceptionally large petrified trees, and petroglyphs:
Formations like this line the highway in the park. 
Petroglyphs. 
Petroglyphs. 
Ruins of an indigenous settlement. 
A raven, tormenting me for my lost Lenore (nameless here forevermore). 
A very large petrified tree – there were a few like this. 
Using my hair and beard as a wind-o-meter. 
Sometimes the trees fossilize in vibrant colors of stone.