When I was 10 years old, I had a slide-viewer called a Viewmaster and some slides of the Painted Desert. At that time, going to the Painted Desert was a possibility as remote was going to the moon. Also at the time, I was embroidering a dresser scarf which showed a mustang galloping against a background of painted cliffs, and to me the colorful desert landscape was mythical - something that only occurs in art.
One day, a couple years ago, when my husband was proposing another exhausting trek to a European capitol, it occurred to me that now I was in a position to fulfil that long-lost dream and go to the Painted Desert.
Trouble is, there are two of them. There is painted desert in Petrified Forest National Park, and my atlas has the unofficial lettering PAINTED DESERT crossing Arizona Highway 89 near Highway 64.
Does anybody who has been there have any recommendations as to which area to visit? We are going in April, and we like nature and bird-watching.