Day 9: Sedona

Now our third day in the same hotel (probably the longest stay of the trip), we visited the red rocks of Sedona today.

Our day's summary:

• -Peeked at Oak Creek Canyon on the way from Flagstaff to Sedona
• -Visited Church of the Holy Cross

- Lunch at Blue Moon Cafe

- Visited Montezuma's Castle

- Naps and shopping in uptown Sedona

- Sunset on the airport mesa

- Junk food dinner back at the hotel

We chose to stay in Flagstaff because the two things we wanted to see in this area are the Grand Canyon and Sedona. Flagstaff was between the two without an unreasonably long drive. Flagstaff was also cheaper than Sedona. The drive from Flagstaff to Sedona on 89A was pretty, rather foresty with evidence of logging. I was hoping that the logging was beneficial for the forest, like maybe they needed to be thinned out once in a while. Wishful thinking. I wondered how we were going to go from dark green forest to red rock but as we descended lower and lower, you could see the white limestone rock morph into the red rock that makes Sedona famous. It was really beautiful.

OAK CREEK CANYON - Our first stop was Oak Creek Canyon because it was the first place we saw "scenic view" signs from the road. It was scenic but nothing red yet. There were Native American jewelry tables there with a clear deliniation of Native Americans on the selling side of the table and white European descent people on the buying. There were some really cute pieces of jewelry (more subtle than the large turqoise pieces) that I was considering buying, but I thought, eh, this is the first jewelry I've come across, I won't get sucked into buying on first sight. But as the day went on, whatever jewelry I saw, I didn't like as much as at Oak Creek Canyon. Well, so I guessed wrong this time.

CHURCH OF THE HOLY CROSS - Our first intentional stop was Church of the Holy Cross, supposedly a nice church nestled in the red rock. On the drive there, I noticed that all the architecture was simple and it was the same red color as the backdrop. They really did blend in, even the sidewalks and curbs were red instead of the usual white/gray concrete color. I can see why they did it but I didn't like it -- it felt like the whole region was covered in red dust. Back to the houses, some houses went so far as to have a red building, but a forest green roof, which I noticed when we were up on a hill looking down. Completely camouflaged! They're probably just trying to be one with nature.

MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE - We visited this Native American cliff dwelling and got another stamp in our National Parks passport. I thought we'd go, snap a few pictures and leave, 45 min. tops. But there was a whole little trail that goes along and with kids who want to know what the signs say, this little trail took twice as long, along with potty breaks, etc. It was really pleasant though, after we taught Eli not to step off the concrete sidewalk (fragile wildlife signs everywhere). Then both kids, armed with binoculars, were plenty entertained. Eli, I have to admit, looked really cute, since it's debatable whether he could see anything through binoculars or whether he was just pretending. He made more than a few other visitors chuckle. So this visit was mostly incident free until the end when, disregarding all warnings from Mommy, Eli backed into a cactus. There were about 5-7 very thin little needles poking out of his shirt or even his skin! He didn't cry or anything (so I was able to keep my cool to thoroughly remove all the needles), but it was kind of scary.

NAP & SHOPPING - On the way back, of course both kids konked out in the car. Tom was a sweetheart and said he could stay in the car while I shopped in uptown Sedona. How freeing to be able to browse without worrying if Eli is going to break something or if Tobey is going to make too much noise. Thanks, dude!

SUNSET ON THE AIRPORT MESA - The locals and some websites mentioning locals suggested the airport mesa as a place to view the sunset. It was pretty but apparently it's even more pretty on a semi-cloudy day.

JUNK FOOD DINNER - I have distinct childhood memories of being on road trips like this one (Yellowstone and Grand Teton come to mind) and we'd get stuck in the midle of nowhere with no place to eat and so our dinner comprised of the various snack foods that my mom had on hand. I remember dinners of vienna sausages on white bread and Pringles. Tonight, we weren't exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it was almost 9PM when we got back to Flagstaff and being so close to bedtime, we didn't think the kids needed a *real* dinner. So when we got back to the hotel, I grabbed the snack food that I had on hand and the kids had banana, canned peaches, Kix (w/o milk) and some bagel chips. Better than what I had growing up, but nonetheless, it was still in the spirit of the junk food dinner. I just hope the kids remember stuff like this when they grow up. I'm just glad that most of the hotels we are picking has breakfast in the morning so the kids have at least one balanced meal a day.

Sedona was hot today but not uncomfortable. Mid-80's but completely dry? I didn't break out into a sweat, at least not into a sweat that I could feel. It did make me wonder how I was going to handle this first East Coast summer coming up. But when Tom read the weather to me this morning, I didn't worry too much. Sedona: 32 degrees Celsius. Boston: 13. I don't know what that translates into in Fahrenheit but it almost didn't matter. It sounded a heck of a lot cooler in Boston, for now. So I'm just hoping that by the time we roll into Boston, we haven't missed the "2 weeks" of gorgeous spring that our native Bostonian friend Vince said Boston has before charging into hot and humid summer.

Tomorrow, we're back on 66 and hopefully make it to the next state: New Mexico!