PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK

IT'S NO SURPRISE that paleon­tologist Bill Parker loves the past. And Petrified Forest National Park has a lot to love, with one of the richest late-Triassic fossil records in the world. Nearly 90 species of plants and animals were first discovered in the park’s fossils, and discoveries continue. “Every time we go out, we pretty much find something new,” Parker says. But Petrified Forest has also been a national park for 110 years, which feeds Parker’s alter ego of park historian. He’s fascinated by how people have experienced the park over time, traveling by wagon over a bumpy Territorial road, in finned cars along Route 66 and by interstate. The park preserves a lot of that history, too, including a stretch of the “Mother Road.” “There’s just a ton of history here,” he says. “History of the park itself. That’s one of the things I really enjoy sharing with people.”