A colorful view of the Painted Desert

After visiting sunset crater, we traveled about 20 minutes northeast and descended from 8000' back down to 3500' and went back from alpine forest to desert brush environment.  Here we came over a hill and the Painted Desert came into view.  It stretches for hundreds of miles to the West, North, and East from the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest and is today part of the Navajo and Hopi nations.  We were going from Sunset Crater to the Wupatki Ruins National Monument

And we got closer to the desert....

And then we were finally in the Painted Desert!

Next stop:  Wupatki Ruins National Monument...