Happy Wednesday!

We crossed another national park off our bucket list last weekend. We visited Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. You may think the photo above is of a big, big log. Well, it used to be, but now it’s solid rock! This giant log was named Old Faithful by the wife of a park superintendent. She said the log was to Petrified Forest what the Old Faithful geyser is to Yellowstone National Park, and the name stuck. The amount of petrified wood in the area was incredible!

Millions of years ago, the area had a climate similar to Costa Rica has today. There was a large river. Trees fell into the river and there was a log jam in a bend where these trees got stuck and were buried by sediment over time. Millions of years later, we have rocks that look like logs! So cool!

We saw petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock.

On the way to Arizona, we passed through Monument Valley and just HAD to take a photo from iconic Forrest Gump Point:

And on the way home, we stopped at Horseshoe Bend:

LIST OF US NATIONAL PARKS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (63 total)

• Acadia National Park {done}
• Arches National Park {done}
• Badlands National Park
• Big Bend National Park
• Biscayne National Park {done}
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park {done}
• Bryce Canyon National Park {done}
• Canyonlands National Park {done}
• Capitol Reef National Park {done}
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Channel Islands National Park
• Congaree National Park
• Crater Lake National Park
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park
• Death Valley National Park {done}
• Denali National Park and Preserve
• Dry Tortugas National Park
• Everglades National Park {done}
• Gates of the Arctic National Park
• Gateway Arch National Park 
• Glacier National Park {done}
• Glacier Bay National Park
• Grand Canyon National Park {done}
• Grand Teton National Park {done}
• Great Basin National Park {done}
• Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park {done}
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park
• Haleakala National Park
• Hawaii Volcanoes National Park {done}
• Hot Springs National Park
• Indiana Dunes National Park
• Isle Royale National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park {done}
• Katmai National Park and Preserve
• Kenai Fjords National Park
• Kings Canyon National Park {done}
• Kobuk Valley National Park
• Lake Clark National Park
• Lassen Volcanic National Park {done}
• Mammoth Cave National Park
• Mesa Verde National Park {done}
• Mount Rainier National Park
• National Park of American Samoa
• New River Gorge National Park 
• North Cascades National Park
• Olympic National Park
• Petrified Forest National Park {done}
• Pinnacles National Park
• Redwood National Park {done}
• Rocky Mountain National Park {done}
• Saguaro National Park {done}
• Sequoia National Park {done}
• Shenandoah National Park
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park
• Virgin Islands National Park
• Voyageurs National Park
• White Sands National Park 
• Wind Cave National Park
• Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
• Yellowstone National Park {done}
• Yosemite National Park {done}
• Zion National Park {done}

Have a great day and I hope you get to do or learn something NEW today!