Petrified Forest National Park and White Sands National Monument (Saturday)

Today (Saturday) was a driving day.  We drove from the Grand Canyon to White Sands National Monument. About 3 hours into our trip, we stopped at Petrified Forest National Park.  It was right off the highway, so we thought, "Why not? We have a national park pass anyways."  It was pretty cool to see the petrified wood.  We walked a couple of short trials before making lunch and heading on our way.  We purchased a piece of petrified wood for a decoration for our new home!  We haven't bought very many souvenirs (we don't like non-useful items), but this should make a pretty neat end table decoration!

Boy, we drove through a nasty rain storm on the way to our campground today!  It was kind of close to our campground, so we hurried as we set up the camper.  Fortunately it did not rain on us while we were outside!  Once we were all set up, we sped down the road to catch the sunset at White Sands National Monument.  We got there in time, but there was not too much of a sunset to see tonight.  There were a lot of rain clouds moving in.  If you ever are in New Mexico, near the area, we would definitely suggest stopping at this national monument.  It was very cool!  We will let the pictures speak for themselves!

Oh, and just for those of you who are interested, our trip is coming to an end in one week.  We will return to Rochester a week from today (On Saturday, August 25th… my Dad's birthday!).  Our final destinations are White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Six Flags near Dallas, TX, and Six Flags in St. Louis, MO.  We have quite a bit of driving in the next week to get back to Minnesota!  We are sad to see our trip coming to a close, but we are excited to move to our first home together once we get back to Minnesota (well, besides our pop-up camper; we did live in it for the first 2 months of our marriage. Hehe) And, we are looking forward to seeing our family and friends… it's been awhile!

Very cool colors!

Standing by a bunch of them

The logs broke up but stayed in a line

It looks like a rock

An awesome one that kept the lines like a tree

A large broken up log

Patrick, sitting on a large petrified log

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Our view as we drove into White Sands National Monument

We watched the sunset

I love him!

See the dark sky... here comes the storm!

So windy!

Looks like heaven

Patrick, carving a heart in the sand

Gorgeous sky (and husband)!

Love forever

Posing in the sand

That's me, heading to the top of that sand dune

The ripples that the wind made in the sand

When we were driving, the sand looked like snow!