Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 6 & Back Home

Our last day. As Shara said, "let's use it wisely". I think we did. We did a couple of the "don't miss" activities; hike around Bell Rock and visit the Tlaquepaque outdoor mall. We took our leftover sandwiches for a picnic lunch and hit the trail by a little after 10 am. Obviously we didn't rush right out the door. The day was beautiful - sunny and really warm. It got up to almost 70! The beginning of the trail was rather flat and that isn't the kind that is most appealing to Shara or myself. Being an adult, I can enjoy other aspects of the trip, like the amazing scenery and vegetation, company, etc. But Shara was a bit bored. But then we got to the more interesting part of the journey, about 1/3 way around Courthouse Butte it got rockier. This part was great fun, but we did have to stop several times for snacks, drink, and drawing in the powdery rock because there were some parts where it was thick enough to make some good peace signs, words and hearts.

Shara's sand art

art found on the trail

After hiking and our picnic, we went shopping and enjoyed looking at the art glass in one of the galleries, seashells and mounted bugs in another, and lots of gift items. We spent quite a bit of time at the Renee Taylor Gallery, that had a cool sculpture garden outside. They had some amazing pieces inside as well. Close to 4:30 we decided to go back to the resort and get pre-packed. Shara watched Bambi, some of the only tv we watched the whole week. Then we decided to grab some dinner and went to the diner again. Shara wanted the same pasta she had the first time but this time we asked for a kids size and they gave about a 1/2 portion. Still much too much but it turned out to be Alan's breakfast. I had a turkey burger w/ grilled onions and Alan had a chicken Caesar salad. I had to get a piece of pie (blueberry) to go and Alan had a chocolate shake to go. Shara already had a candy bar earlier as well as the leftovers of her cookie, but she tasted some of the shake and thought it was pretty good.

So we went back and got ourselves ready for an early exit to go back home. The trip home wasn't too eventful, other than us trying to get a souvenir. We had a two hour drive to Phoenix and Shara played on the phone most of the time. We had wanted to get her a yucca leaf for show and tell and forgot until we were on the road. Alan pulled over to a side road and we found a spot with a few plants. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to just pull off a piece, but it was and I was lucky I didn't slice my finger off or land in some cactus because I certainly wasn't paying attention to where I was but just concentrating on trying to get the stem off. Alan grabbed a sharp rock and did it the old fashioned way. We also had a very easy flight, though the pilot warned us that it would be rocky. It certainly wasn't anything close to what I've experienced before and was over very quickly. We had a layover but stayed on the plane. The timing was also perfect. We had little wait and going through security was a breeze. Even the huge line to check our bags went super fast. Southwest must have had 15 counters open. They also had someone directing us which station was open. We were very impressed with all the efficiency. When we got back to Boston, we had a bit of a wait when the belt for the luggage carousel broke down, but Shara had a ton of fun running back and forth between Alan, waiting at the carousel, and myself, waiting out of the way. We got home late and to an ice cold house but managed to get up the next morning and fall back into our usual routines.

Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 5

Today we hit two out of the three planned National Parks. We went to Walnut Canyon and Sunset Crater Volcano national monuments. Before we went, we picked up sandwiches at Sedona Memories bakery. When we got there, just after 9:30 am, they had a closed sign up. I went to check the hours on the door and they didn't open until 10 am, but the owner saw me looking in and opened up early for us. Lucky for us because the sandwiches were really good. They have a limited menu but you can make your sandwich any way you want and all the breads are homemade. I had a turkey on multi-grain. It normally comes with (and I'm not going to remember everything) avocado, cheese, cranberry sauce, sprouts, mayo, lettuce, and sunflower seeds. I think that's all! I had it with everything but the avocado and mayo. My jaw was hurting a bit when I ate it, it was so big! Alan had the roast beef with cheese, horseradish, mayo, sprouts, lettuce..., on a French roll. Shara had ham and swiss with mayo on whole wheat. From what I heard, the whole wheat was really good. It tasted like white bread and was nice and soft. Meanwhile, it was the brownest wheat bread I've seen! I told her that wheat bread can be soft, it just depends on how it's baked and by whom. I have to admit, I'm still learning how to get a good texture. It's not very consistent.

Anyway, back to our day. We headed up towards Flagstaff again, up Rt. 89A, the one with the trip through the mountain with all the switchbacks. It's not as bad as the first time, now that we're used to it. It took about an hour to get to Walnut Canyon. They had a tour starting at 11 am that I thought would be fun to go to. It's nice to have the rangers explain things and we get to learn a bit more, or certainly different, from what's in the brochures. Katie, our ranger guide is from New Hampshire and gave us a perspective of the Sinagua people who came to the Walnut Canyon area after the eruption of the volcano at the Sunset Crater Volcano site. The really interesting thing about Walnut Canyon are the cliff dwellings. They built their homes into the sides of the stone cliffs that form the canyon. After our tour of the front part of the site, we spent a lot of time in the museum  with Shara as she completed her Jr. Park Ranger booklet so she could earn another badge/pin.

After she took her oath, we went and had our sandwiches in the car because it was too cold to sit outside and eat. It was fun to have a car picnic and none of us could finish the sandwiches. The sandwiches gave us some new energy that we could use to get us around the Island Trail. It's a mile walk around an island in the middle of the canyon with several of the dwellings. They were interesting but none of us could imagine how they could live on a cliff, let alone in the cold. Alan put it well, "not growing up on a cliff, I'd never be able to live like that." We also heard other people wondering how many people they lost off the sides. I have no idea how someone not fit could do the island walk. There are 185 steps down and the same back up. Even if it wasn't at an elevation of 7000 feet, it would still be tiring. But we did it.

Next stop, Sunset Crater Volcano. Shara was wanting to go to the volcano for a while and even though she found it interesting, it was a bit monotonous for her. We started in the visitor's center so we could get the Jr. Park Ranger booklet. This was faster to fill out because much of it was what she was able to find on the Lava Flow trail. Walnut Canyon was mostly what was learned by reading the exhibits in the museum. We still spent some time at the Sunset visitor center because they had a seismograph that measured how hard you jump, a monitor with up to date earthquakes around the world, and information on where volcanoes have happened throughout the world. We learned the correlation between earthquakes and volcanoes and how frequently earthquakes happen. The Lava Flow Trail was a mile circular trail, first paved, over the lava flow. We then went off to the more interesting part of the trail. This part went through the actual lava and cinders. It was quite interesting and the dead trees that were throughout the area were particularly beautiful, with their twists and spiraled roots and trunks.

By the time we ended the trail, it was 4:40 and the visitor's center closed at 5 pm, so we headed there so Shara could finish her program. This time she had to ask the ranger 3 questions, along with reporting what she found on the trail and answer some of the questions. She asked; how many tours do you give a day? What is a normal day like for a ranger? Why are the trees twisted? One part of the packet she missed was the question, "Explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell thought that the cinders at the top of the volcano resembled a brilliant sunset. This led to the name Sunset Crater. What do the volcano’s colors make you think of?" Since she missed it, she had to give the answer to the ranger on the spot. She thought for a good minute, not feeling rushed at all, and finally spoke, "beautiful red". We thought that was a really good answer.

Having truly earned her third badge, we had to leave without seeing the Wupatki site. It was so close, but we didn't want to be there until dark and it would already be after 6:30 before we got back to Sedona. We started driving and took a little detour to see the Painted Desert Vista on the grounds. It was about 5 miles away and I was curious what it was. It turned out to be a view of the Painted Desert some 140 miles away, but so clear. Truly amazing that we could see that far away and it was quite a different perspective. On the way back, Alan had to wipe down the inside windows because the sun was setting and hit so bad it was very hard to see, especially when driving down a twisting mountain. But he was happy he'd finally be able to go back to Sedona through the Oak Creek mountain. While we were driving, Shara worked on a word find puzzle and laughed at us when we sang. There were a couple, "oh, stop!, eww!'s" We decided to go out to dinner because we didn't have enough leftovers amassed yet. We had to give Arizona a chance at better sushi so went to Szechuan Chinese Restaurant, Sushi/Martini Bar. It was good, not fantastic, but much better sushi than last night and the variety was tons better. Shara had a California Roll, salmon sashimi, and miso soup. Alan had a turtletini (what we make at home plus Frangelico), and a dinner special of hot and sour soup, appetizer plate, and Mongolian beef. I had ma po tofu and finished Shara's Sashimi and 1 piece of California roll. Then we stopped next door at Natural Harvest market for some apples, which turned out to include a teeny blood orange that Shara's going to have for breakfast, and some funky monkey dehydrated fruit for the plane ride home. Oh yes, and a piece of cherry pie to go with the leftover chocolate cake from last night's quest for decent dessert at 8 pm.

Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 4

This morning we stuck closer to Sedona and didn't rush to get out of the condo. We took our time and decided to check out Jerome, a copper mining "ghost town". We drove up the steep mountain to get to the visitor's center, went in, watched a cute documentary about the town and its illustrious past and how it's changed into an artists' colony. The museum as small but gave a very good history of mining and gemstones. We didn't spend too much time there because it wasn't all that exciting. We left to go check out the town. There are several shops and a few restaurants but the most interesting part is how they're all laid out on the mountain. It's a lot of walking up and down steep stairs. They have quite a few nice shops, featuring local artists. Shara pressed a couple more pennies here, so we have our souvenirs. The store we all liked the most was the Nellie Bly Kaleidoscope store. Aside from the magnificent works of interactive art, the girl working there was really sweet and fun. She made her job interesting by really talking with the customers and having fun with them by showing them ways to look at the kaleidoscopes or how to shoot a digital photo of, say, one's daughter, through a scope.

We decided if we were going to do anything else, we would need to leave, so we did a little more shopping and headed back towards Sedona to hike more. We went to one of the more famous rock formations, Chimney Rock. The hike was the Chimney Rock Loop Hike and we all had a really good time. Shara loved taking turns playing tour guide and is quite a ham. When we left, we were hungry, again, and no one had any real cravings so Shara, as usual, wanted sushi. We tried to talk her into something else and Alan was skeptical about sushi in Arizona, but I got out the phone with the very spotty Internet service, and found a place that may or may not have been good. Turns out it wasn't very good. The nori was rubbery, the fish was ok, but nothing special, and the edamame were overcooked. But we ate anyway, of course. I needed dessert after that, and we didn't have anything for breakfast the next day, so we went and sought out the Wildflower Bread Co. It had gotten great reviews but it seemed like Panera. It was very good and very like Panera. We got a couple of baked goods for the morning and I chose a piece of chocolate cake for my dessert and Shara chose a root beer for her dessert. I ate most of mine and she had about 1/2 of hers.

The excitement for the evening was trying to get two thorns out of Shara's back. She was not happy with it at all. More scared than anything. Alan was able to get tweezers from the resort's front desk and get them out pretty easily, but that didn't happen until after a lot of crying and screaming.
We all slept pretty well after that drama!

Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 3

At first I thought Meteor Crater would be a very quick stop on the way to the Petrified Forest. It turned out to be a fun, yet serious, educational stop that taught us about meteors and the solar system. The drive took a couple of hours so we ate a quick breakfast and left at about 8 am. We decided to take the trip through the mountain again, along 89A, through Oak Creek Canyon and Shara was fine. She actually wore sea bands just in case. Apparently they worked. There were about 6 other groups of people there at the same time, so our tour had maybe 15 people in it. We had the best guide, Eduardo. He was funny but gave a ton of information about the site and how the crater was formed and the long history that followed. The part that was so surprising for me was my lack of ability to get a sense of the size of the crater. I had no perspective, even knowing it was a mile across. We had a fun time looking at the gift shop and had a bite to eat before continuing up the road to the Petrified Forest.

If you look at the website for the forest, they also mention the painted desert. I wasn't sure if we'd be seeing anything this time of year, assuming the "painting" came from flowers, but that's not all of it. They're also referring to the changes in the landscape from all the mineral deposits. Alan made the very astute comment that the mesas reminded him of the Navajo rugs. Exactly!

The highlight of the day though was Shara becoming a Jr. Park Ranger. She worked very hard to go through the booklet and relate what the various properties of wood she observed, animals she saw and then wrote why it is important to preserve these natural wonders. She earned herself a pin and badge and even took an oath to protect our natural resources. She was very happy about it.

Much of the information for Shara to add to her booklet was found in the Crystal Forest. It's a mile walkway around a large crop of petrified wood. We had a fun time finding different colors of crystals inside the "wood" shells and looking at the different mineral formations. Boy it got windy! Another fun location was Puerco Pueblo. A pueblo site that features a summer solstice marker and Petroglyphs. We had a personal tour from Park Ranger Jones who told us about the pueblo and some of the plants in the area; Mormon Tea (Contains Ephedra and popular with the Hopi and other tribes. The Mormons, who can't have caffeine were able to sneak this into their diets.), buckwheat, and a plant that has seeds that were collected and put into their flatbreads. We didn't spend too much time in the park but enough to get a taste for it. Their website is wonderful and can fill in the spots we didn't have to see.

On the way back, we drove down Route 66 a bit and ate dinner at Mesa Blanca Cafe in Winslow. Our waitress was so nice and took care of us well. She brought us a couple of different salsas and recommended a good dinner for me to try a variety of their dishes. The place wasn't too busy, but there were locals there as well as tourists. The place has been there for 65 years. It wasn't the best Mexican food I've had, but was very good. Shara really liked her taco and the rice. The meals also came with Sopasillas and honey. More fried dough! Alan still has 1/2 his beef burrito but Shara and I ate mostly everything on our plates. She left a bit of the refried beans.

Since we left Winslow at sunset - and what a beautiful sunset we were able to witness! I said we are not going through the mountain in the dark, so we went the same route as the day before, back to the resort. We got back at about 8:30, but were so beat we all went to sleep by 9 pm!

Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 2

Today we went to the Grand Canyon. Yes, it is a canyon and it is grand. Actually, muy grande but with so many tourists, I found it hard to truly appreciate it's grandeur. I also didn't like that the "rim trail" is a concrete sidewalk. It's nice that so many people came come and appreciate such a marvelous geological formation but on the way back to the resort, we saw the lines of tour buses going in and it's hardly a landmark in nature. It's much more of an amusement attraction. So the fact that Shara didn't want to go at all and made it be well known throughout most of the day, didn't take away from what I may have been feeling if she'd been in a better mood. I can't completely blame her for her mood. The trip there was over a very steep mountain and the road was shaped like this:

She got a bit of motion sickness and didn't quite know what to do about it. It took a while for her to tell us she wasn't feeling good, but once she did, and we got near civilization, we found a Target and got a box (huge) of Saltines and an iced, skim, decaf, Caramel Machiato. She didn't touch the drink but had a few Saltines and took a nap. I had heard that it was worth going a little out of the way to get to the canyon and stop at the Trading Post in Cameron, for "a fabulous lunch of Navajo tacos". This place was out near or on the Navajo nation reservation. That was a very different landscape from Sedona. It looked like an alien planet. Certainly interesting but the word desolate comes to mind. We did stop at the trading post and ate lunch, which was good, but I wouldn't call it fabulous.This part Shara really liked. She had a hot pork sandwich on white bread with mashed potatoes and gravy. Alan and I had the Navajo Tacos. Basically a taco inside a big fried dough bowl. We were all fascinated by the Navajo blankets. In the gift shop, they  showed a loom, thread, part of a blanket in progress and then had dioramas of the different flowers and herbs they use for the dye. I don't think anyone would question the price for these, considering the amount of labor that must go into them. Taking the trip to Cameron extended the drive time to the Grand Canyon by about an hour, I think. We continued on, through more vast areas of limited signs of civilization, but did see one person in a field with sheep, several fields with a few cows, and also many roadside craft stands.

We got to the Eastern entrance to the park and got out at the first view stop at Desert View. There was a gift shop and a watchtower. The tower was interesting. It's being restored/renovated and along the inside walls are native paintings/symbols. It was very crowded up the steep, narrow stairs, but the gorgeous brass?railing, shaped into what looked like a rope motif,  worked. After this stop, we headed on toward the visitor's center, stopping for another look at the canyon along the way. At the visitor's center we walked the rim a bit, took some pictures and got a very good view of the various layers of rock. I found I couldn't look down too far because it can be dizzying. We didn't go into the visitor's center but just went to the bathrooms before we left. They use all spring water in the bathrooms and I think they have a purification facility right there. It's quite an operation and looking at how they've changed things here and there to have less impact on the environment may give ideas to other companies on how to do the same.

The trip back to the resort gave us a chance to see a wind farm that wasn't too far away, but it's really hard to get a perspective on distance here. You can see so far away it could be miles. We also rode next to several trains and played a few pass and play games of Words with Friends. The cell service is spotty so it's a good thing Alan downloaded a map of the region, rather than relying on our phones. We took a more round-about way of getting to Sedona because we (I) didn't want to go back through the mountain again. It so happened that this was the way recommended by one of Alan's co-workers to get the first "wow" view of the area. It was amazingly beautiful. We hit it close to sunset and got to see the red rocks from a completely different view. Very much like this. We decided on left-overs for dinner and got to bed soon after.

Sedona Winter Vacation - Day 1

This morning was a bit less relaxing than I had hoped. I was very close to finishing up the post for the travel day and noticed an email saying our mail server wasn't responding, so I had to take a break and get that working. I am very hopeful it was just because of spammers taking advantage of IT people having a day off for Presidents Day. I'm sticking with that. Anyway, that did contribute to how the morning played out. As I was behind on getting ready for the day, I had Alan shower first and take Shara to a complimentary hot breakfast from the resort. They didn't stay for the shpiel but had a yummy breakfast. It sounds like they enjoyed talking with an older couple there too. While they were away, I got showered and dressed and ready for our Pink Jeep Tour.

Since we came into Sedona while it was dark, the drive into the town gave us our second awe inspired moment. "Oh my god!" was the best I could come up with. Shara even commented several times how beautiful it was. People are correct when they say the pictures don't do it justice. Realizing that, I figured I wouldn't spend my day taking pictures that others have already done so much and often much better. Alan drove so I could look around and get a sense of where everything was located. We got into town after the 30 minutes we were supposed to get to the tour location. In fact, we parked about 1/2 mile away from the office so it took a little while. Even still, we had time to check in and go to the bathroom.

All the people for the 10 AM tour met downstairs and got assigned their guide. We were in a group with a couple from Las Vegas and another couple; a teacher from MA! on his way to Atlanta to look for work, and his friend who lived in Atlanta. The three of us were on the left side of the jeep. I was behind the driver, Shara was in the middle, and Alan in the back. Once we were all aboard, we made our way over to the Broken Arrow trail head. There's no way our rental car would even get over the entrance to make it to the parking area! The jeep went right on in and up and over! This was a ton of fun, but we learned a lot about the vegetation in the area and the geology. For example, the purple cacti are dying and losing their chlorophyll.  "It was bumpy and fun!", says Shara. Here are all the pictures.

Ahoy!

Some were taken of the other jeeps, to show what we did before them. The tour stops and gives us photo opps. It was tons of fun and a great way to become introduced to the rock formations in the area and understand how fragile the environment here is. The rock is not hard and all the cars and jeeps going up the mountains do a lot of damage. Pink Jeep works with the forestry service to add back rocks that erode and fix the damage they have done as well as others.

I'm glad we picked them for our tour. I also got a discount coupon to use with the tour that came with 3 free lunches at their cafe. So after the tour we went to the cafe and each had a panini, drink and chips. The best part was were we ate them. The cafe had chairs around a deck overlooking Oak Creek and surrounded by the red rocks. We spotted a blue bird that is probably called a Steller's Jay (according to Shara's Sunset Crater Jr. Park Ranger activity booklet), and a butterfly on a small blossoming cherry tree. After lunch we walked around the town and sampled several flavored balsamic vinegars and olive oils. Had some ice cream and decided to let the fates take over what we would be doing next and followed the blue ovals in the sidewalk. It happened to take us to where our car was parked! Can't argue with that sign. We headed out of town, stopped for a few groceries and back to the resort. Put the groceries away and were back on the road to find the trail head to Airport Loop. This hike was supposed to get us some nice views of the sunset reflecting off the rocks. Well the beginning of the trip was fine. We parked at a church and found the trail. We walked up the rather rocky path and then over to the right, towards the airport. There were cactus flanking the path so we had to watch our step, but other than that, after the initial hike up the hill it was pretty flat.

Laurie and Shara on the Airport Loop trail

We walked and then wondered if we should go farther and try to do more of the loop, head back or check out another trail called Tabletop Trail. It was only 1/2 mile each way, so we continued on that direction. About 1/2 way to the end of Tabletop Trail, Shara fell. She only fell on her knee, so it wasn't too bad but she was tired and didn't shluff it off. We dragged her farther and almost to the end she wiped out again. So at this point we turned around and headed back. It was getting dusky and we knew it would be a little slow going. Let's just say the last 3/4 mile of the trip was Alan leading with his flashlight app shining light on us following. I held Shara's hand and that made both of us much more comfortable. She was pretty miserable, I was super-stressed and Alan was quiet, just trying to get us back as quickly as possible. So we learned though we feel like responsible, thoughtful adults, we can do stupid things like bringing a seven year old out for a hike so close to dark.

no, that's not cream sauce, it's cheese!

We got to the car, kissed the ground, and headed for dinner. We ended up down the road at the Red Planet Diner. When all else fails, go for comfort food. It was really good, surprisingly enough. The place seemed a little iffy. I hadn't read any reviews but hey, how bad can a diner be? Shara had the red planet pasta - linguine w/ tomato cream sauce and chicken. It came with a salad that she wanted made into a Caesar and garlic bread. Boy did she eat! Alan had a double bacon cheeseburger w/ fries. I had eggplant parm with a salad that I split with Alan and it also came with garlic bread and linguine. We took home 3/4 of Shara's pasta and I thought we asked for my pasta wrapped up too, but I wasn't paying that much attention so that got tossed. I wanted dessert and they had fruit pies, so I had cherry. Would you like that heated or cold? What kind of a question was that? Heated please and with ice cream. Shara had a root beer. Alan sat there being so stuffed.

Back at the resort, Alan gave Shara the choice of sleeping in the bed or the couch. She chose the bed with me and I was very happy with that! No snoring and her cold is pretty much over by now so she wasn't coughing.