At this viewpoint there were signs warning us to STAY OFF THE BRIDGE- accompanied by old photos of ladies in long skirts, hats, and boots standing on the bridge!   Despite the photos, we weren’t tempted to try to walk across.

Our first stop at Petrified Forest was the Crystal Forest, shown above in black and white. It’s hard to get a sense of scale looking at the image- but it may help to know that the blackish chunks near the bottom of photo are cut petrified trees, perhaps two feet in diameter.  They are everywhere.

And here is what the inside looks like!

We spent about an hour walking the trails of this area. It is eerily beautiful and definitely otherworldly.

We found our way here without looking for it. It’s pretty startling when your cell phone gives your location as Bucket of Blood Street! We were just driving around Holbrook and found our way to the railroad station; that’s when I looked at my app for directions and discovered what street we were on! Of course the name refers to an infamous bar fight when Holbrook was a cowboy town. By the way, I did NOT take this photo- I meant to, but got distracted.

Here is one of the photos I did take on Bucket of Blood Street. I was attracted to the sight of the daytime moon over the roofline of this old building, which now seems to serve mostly as a site for AA meetings.

We have been slow to explore our new (to us) state of Arizona, but managed to have a little getaway in the town of Holbrook a few days ago. Our goal was to visit the nearby Petrified Forest National Park (we did), but we also enjoyed the town of Holbrook itself. Our motel was right on the main drag and was like a time capsule of the 1960’s (although with a big screen TV and other modern touches). In the next few days, I’ll post some shots from our excursion to the Petrified Forest.