Petrified Forest National Park.
The winds have all died down, and the sun's out, so this seemed like a good day to hat up and mosey on down the road.
Before I left Flagstaff, I filled up with diesel and stopped at Walmart to get some groceries. Flagstaff is not a very big town, but it actually has two Walmarts. But one's really old, and the other one, which is huge, has only been there for a few years.
The drive was short, uneventful, and I-40 had more truck traffic on it than I've ever seen. I pulled into a large tourist-trap "gift shop" before lunch, where I can boondock for free, and the southwest entrance to Petrified Forest National Park is only a half mile from the tourist trap I'm boondocking at.
It's a lot warmer here, since I've lost several thousand feet in altitude, and the nearest town's name is Holbrook, Arizona, which doesn't have much going for it other than its only 20 miles to the "Petrified Park", and it's one of the many towns on Route 66. The town has several truck stops and bunches of gift shops hawking petrified stuff, but I have no desire to load up my camper with rocks since my storage space and weight-carrying capabilities are limited... But at least they wouldn't take up any of my extremely limited refrigerator space….. It takes a long time for rocks to spoil.
I figure I'll stay here two or three days, three days being the limit for the free boondocking. And even though it doesn't take that long to see the petrified trees, especially since I've been here several times before, and you see one petrified tree, you've seen ‘em all. I just hope the weather cooperates and I get some cloudy weather.
Theboondork
Here are a few pictures of the flowers that were growing around me at my boondocking spot in Flagstaff…After all, this is Spring.
These aren't flowers, but they're even better; they're juniper berries and a key ingredient of gin.