Today, we were setting off from Gallup and going to the petrified forest national park, famed for some of the greatest views America can offer. It was a few hours drive, so nothing we couldn't manage easily. We had a KOA camp booked nearby, so all we had to do was go there and explore. We went there on Route 66, and some of it was a red sand road, dusty and slightly bumpy, but that's all part of it. We saw wild horses in the road too, pretty casual it seemed. We came to Fort Courage, another abandoned site on Route 66, another one that people and eventually time forgot. All that remains of it, is the empty Fort and the huge sign. The signs often being the last defence of these places it seems, all along the route. Anyway, not long after that, we stopped for subway before our trip into the petrified forest. Once we arrived, we watched the welcome movie in the visitor centre, explaining that the wood is petrified by falling into rivers and over time being covered and buried in silt and mud, where the tree then absorbs all the minerals and hardens, essentially forming a crystallised tree. This is how the colours of the wood form, in layers, through different minerals enriching the tree at different stages. We started our trip through the petrified forest, and the first area you go through is the painted desert, where once again, erosion and time has revealed layers in the cliff faces and dunes. Which when looking from some of the raised overlooks make for really scenic views. Some of the different colours were stark compared to normal sand, and cliffs you'd expect to see elsewhere, instead here there was purples, blues and oranges. After a little hike, we felt we deserved to be treated to an ice cream, so we both had a mint chocolate chip one from the old Route 66 stop, now a museum in the painted desert. We looked from various overlook points and even saw where Route 66 used to pass through the national park, indicated only by a single file line of telephone poles. We then called it a day, because we would be returning for a lot longer tomorrow, that would mean we could get dinner and set up at the camp with time to spare. On the way back, we stopped at Stewart's Petrified Wood, which had different dinosaurs constructed on the property and he had pet ostriches too. Another very interesting, if not weird, Route 66 stop. Then we headed back to camp. We got DQ for dinner, I had chicken strips and Marie had a salad and then we set the tent up at camp and chilled for the evening. We did some washing and made sure we had clothes ready for the hiking tomorrow. It was going to be very nice weather too, so lots of water needed.