Sedona - Detailed - June 7

We got a bit delayed leaving the hotel because there was a detour. We ended up going through downtown Tucson. It seemed nice enough, but we didn’t stop or anything. We drove up towards Sedona through Phoenix. This was the most traffic we had seen on our trip. In Phoenix, Ed saw a billboard for In ‘n Out Burger. We used the handy GPS to track one down. They don’t have anything but burgers (really good ones) so Jeanette got a chicken sandwich from McDonalds. The drive from Phoenix to Sedona had tons of mountains and evergreens. We were not expecting that at all. After about 5 hours, we got up to Sedona. We stopped at Chapel Rock on the way. It is a church up on a hill with great views. Then we stopped at the Gap for Jeanette to get a new tank top. We didn’t have too many directions, but we thought we could figure out how to get to the nice section of town. We thought wrong. The first problem was that the whole town is under construction. The second problem is that we went towards downtown. It was all fast food and banks and whatnot. We ended up turning around and heading to our hotel. We figured out we had to go uptown and that is where we headed. We parked in a lot and headed to a few stores. There was live music playing out in front of them. We looked at some jewelry and T-shirts and a place called the Jerky Hut. Then we got sucked in by someone trying to sell us a time share. When we got out of there, we went to a few more local stores. We met a guy from Cazenovia who owned one of them. Another lady seemed very pretentious when we tried to make small talk with her. It seemed like Main Street was very touristy. Most of the people loved their little town and took any chance to tell you how great it was. We headed to some little shop village we had seen earlier. It was getting late, like 6pm, so most of the stores were closing. The village was very nice and was hosting a wedding when we were there. At that point, we decided to get some food. We looked around at a ton of restaurants because they were all very much overpriced. We ended up at an Italian place that was pretty good. You could tell it was fancy because it had Astroturf out in front. We sat on the patio that had some good smelling flowers and a little traffic noise. Jeanette had Fettuccini Alfredo with spinach, grilled chicken, and mushrooms. Ed had tortellini with Portobello mushrooms. Both of us liked our meal. Then we ran to the grocery store to get some supplies for the Grand Canyon. The town seemed to close down pretty early expect for a few bars. It wasn’t a bar night, so we went back and watched some TV.

We got up and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Jeanette’s legs were very tired from her early morning workout the day before. We headed down to Red Rock State Park for a hike. We went on a few trails and saw some gorgeous scenery. There were many lizards around ever corner. Then we saw a rattlesnake moving away from us. After that, we saw a few deer and a rabbit. It was a very nice park with great views. Then we headed up to Slide Rock Park. There are natural “waterslides” in the river. The lot was full so we went up the road a mile and parked on the side of the road. We went down a very steep path to the creek. We were attempting to walk down to the park. Ed went right in the water while Jeanette stayed up on the rocks. About half way there, Jeanette reluctantly got in the water up to her knees. We made it to the park and it was worth the trip. Although aimed at smaller kids, Ed went down the natural red rock slide. He also jumped from a red rock ledge that was about 15 feet up. Then we headed back up. There were a lot of people out, enjoying the nice day and great views. We got back in the car and drove towards Oak Creek Park. The drive was through the woods, not deserts at all. It was also very mountainous. When we got to the “park”, we realized it was just a scenic overlook. We got to see the road we drove up on and the creek. After that, we drove to Flagstaff. It has a nice downtown area with a bunch of stores, little plazas, and restaurants. Some of the plazas and restaurants had live music outside on this gorgeous afternoon. Most of the store were closing soon, so we saw a few and then headed to the hotel. There was an Outback nearby, so we got a quick bite and went back to the room to sort out things to take to the Grand Canyon. We had to make a quick trip to Target for a few last minute things. We came home and watched part of the movie, “Natural Lampoon’s Vacation”. It seemed like we were following their itinerary pretty closely…at least from the part we saw. They drove from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, then out to Los Angeles. We didn’t watch the ending, which Ed has seen, but went to bed to wake up early for our drive to the Grand Canyon.