Petrified Forest...overrated or underrated and why ?

[Tex?Il?]

Like others said, the entire Colorado Plateau of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah is a geologic and scenic wonderland. One of my favorite parts of the country.

Petrified Forest is cool. In addition to the petrified logs buried under volcanic ash and mud for millions of years, it is a hotbed for triassic era dinosaur fossils. The Natural history museum I volunteer at in CA has fossil from there.

Its a little far somewhat I guess from some of the other wonders of the Colorado Plateau, (IE: Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches, Sedona, etc.) but it makes a perfect stopping point if you are doing a cross country trip on I-40.

Just be warned, the park takes VERY seriously, smuggling out of petrified wood pieces. They've lost so much - when I went there back in 2006 it was the closest to being like airport security that I've ever seen at a NP.

You can always buy pieces of petrified wood gathered legally from ones' private land outside the park.

[ScottsdaleMark]

I enjoyed the Petrified Forest. It is a good road-trip stop because you can drive through it, make several stops, and more or less see a lot of things within a couple hours if you're in a hurry. It's not an all-day commitment to get value out of it. It's right off the 40 a little east of Holbrook and my wife and kids and I made a loop through there in 2-3 hours I'd say with a number of stops along the way to get out and do short walks. It's very car friendly and parking was plentiful along the loop.

As TexIl mentioned, there are plenty of businesses bordering the park and in Holbrook that will sell you all the petrified qood you could ever want. It's really not that expensive to buy unless you want a big ol' stump or something.