SEDONA

4^th of September 2012

… a lot of RED ROCKS …

We started our third week in Flagstaff, Arizona. J. finally started working normal schedule and we are good to go (for 13 weeks). On this fine day, we figured that we would do quick exploratory trip to Sedona, to see what is there.

Sedona is about 30 miles from Flagstaff on relatively nice road (89A). It takes about 45 minutes to get there. The elevation drop is about 2500 feet. The drive was nice and pleasant, with really pretty previews of Sedona (probably). And we started to see more and more “RED ROCK”.

For the most part (maybe all, I am not sure) the road goes through Coconino National Forest. This forest covers huge area around Flagstaff (in all directions, I think). So the surroundings were really nice, switching between nice green pine forest and incredible cliffs and rocky hills. As I said before … a lot of red rock. Before we even realized we were in Sedona.

The beginning of town was weird. Most of it was shops, restaurants, and “tourist” traps. I was a bit sad about that. It still looked really nice. First, we stopped by visitor’s center. It was really warm outside (not as bad as in Phoenix). We got some information, map of trail and left. We decided to drive around, visit some of those “viewing” points and slowly head home afterwards.

There was airport hill, we climbed up and saw so much of the valley. The town looked pretty small and the sun was pretty strong. (This time, we used sun screen.) Well worth it, I mean, to climb the hill and look around.

We drove around quite a bit, visited few other sites and enjoyed views of incredible formations. Indeed, it was a lot of red rock. J. did not have proper shoes, so we did not do any serious hiking. We walked around a bit, took some pictures (some means a lot) and just tried to enjoy it.

Whole Northern Arizona has limited number of roads (there are forest roads, but those do not always work), so only real choice was going back the same road we came. For this time, we decide do take bigger detour and drive towards Camp Verde and Freeway (17 – which starts in Flagstaff and goes south). We thought that we will drive number 89A few times in future, so we might as well do something different. So we did … more touristy stuff (stores, restaurants etc.) and kind of sadness from all of that. But .. that is the life. Just by a fortune we stopped by a special church standing on the top of hill. It is Chapel of the Holy Cross. It was really incredible. Small modern church standing in between mass of red rock. Incredible views. Incredible house on the bottom of the hill. We never figured what is that house.

We were  really glad we stopped. Well worth it, again. More incredible (and often unreal) views. Along the way, we stopped for late lunch (pretty good).

Highway. We saw behind us dark clouds and almost visible rain. It was like blue paint being poured over whole area. I guess, we were glad we were leaving. Around half an hour of relatively boring drive. It started to rain.

Really heavy rain. Flagstaff. We stopped by the store to get something sweet and then we were at home. Oh … yeah.

Oh … there was really a lot of red rock.