Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks

We stopped for lunch on the way at Nurd Berger, in Globe, which in addition to good burgers and awesome Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and superhero decor, also has a Super Nintendo to play while you wait for your order. Colby was in heaven (especially since the game featured Donkey and Diddy Kong). The place was packed with elderly bikers, but they were more interested in talking than eating, so we snuck our order in before the crowd.

The drive with all the different rock formations and canyons was beautiful. We stopped at the Salt River Canyon to admire the view.

And a different set of elderly bikers took our picture (they really are nice).

Then we went to the visitors' center and stamped our National Parks Passport. We have officially visited all the National Parks in Arizona!

Digging for fossils 

And hiking around the Visitor's Center

Alice quote: "You don't want to fall down there or you have to be resurrected."

In front of Old Faithful, the biggest petrified tree in the park

Then we continued driving to our Airbnb

The kids loved the house and Alice immediately got to work organizing everything. For some reason Claire didn't sleep great that night. On her 5th time waking up, Alice went and calmed her down. She can be such a great helper.
The next morning we discovered a mouse had nibbled through our grocery bag and started munching on a bagel. He didn't eat much, just a couple tiny bites.  We like to think that one of Claire's nighttime howls saved our breakfast :)

Our first hike was the Painted Desert Rim trail. It was 32 degrees and we froze, but the views were amazing.

The hike ended at the Historic Painted Desert Inn. Robb ran back for the car while we endured Claire's first tantrum (she didn't want to wear her coat). By the time he got back, the Inn opened for tours and we got to peak inside.

It was filled with artwork from the 1930's  and had lots of little architectural details that made the whole building beautiful.  

Alice and Claire were both very interested in the old ice cream parlor

They also commissioned a local artist to build this kaleidoscope that you could rotate around to view rocks and pieces of petrified wood through different lenses.

Then we drove to Blue Mesa and somehow convinced the kids to go on another hike...maybe it was Robb promising to push them in stroller. The trail went down into the canyon and we got to admire the different colors of sediment up close

Or at least until Claire started on her second tantrum. Then Robb took our screaming bear-cat and I pushed the stroller (the older kids had to get out and walk once the trail started moving out of the canyon). Robb told me the tantrum was very similar to the time he had to give her a bath after she rubbed peanut butter all over her face and hair.

She immediately fell asleep on the way home

And we also passed over a section of Historic Route 66