Someplace new

Lots of friends have told me I should visit Sedona but I've never quite made it to that part of Arizona in any of my past trips. This time we had a full day to check out Sedona, the local parks and take a drive to a ghost town.

I had been advised that the state highway down to Sedona was a much better option than just taking the interstate so we started the day back on highway 89, which we had already covered many miles on back in Utah. The drive takes you through a dense forest, through an epic twisty mountain pass (driven at Miss Daisy speeds due to traffic) and then as you emerge on the other side you start to get back to red rock and more open vistas. Sedona itself is split into the olde town up north and then a much larger more recent development further west. We stopped in the old section for some lunch prior to heading out for our hikes. Once again urbanspoon, or maybe it's Apple maps, failed us by recommending a restaurant that was supposed to be right where we parked but instead was located all the way in new Sedona. No matter, we wandered down the street and found the Cowboy Club. We decided on a trio of appetizers for lunch instead of a full meal; prickly pear cactus fries, rattlesnake skewers and nachos. Everything was fantastic and the rattlesnake really did kind of taste like chicken, but better I think. We'll have to see if the local Whole Foods ever stocks it :) We stopped short of ordering dessert and headed out for our scenic point of the day, the Red Rock State Park and Cathedral Rock.

The part doesn't have any seriously long hikes, just a few trails to wander through the woods by the stream to get some good pictures of the formations. We did hike in the stream for a bit although it was really only ankle deep so not quite like the Narrows. We had heard that there was a local Vortex although I didn't really notice anything, we need to visit the Oregon vortex for comparison. What we did find though were lots and lots of stacked rock cairns. Usually you'll find a few of these along a trail to mark the route but here they were everywhere, fields full of them, on tops of trees, even hanging from trees... it was a bit creepy and maybe if we were hiking at dusk it might have had a Blair Witch vibe to it. I managed to build a couple of my own stacks and I'd like to think it was my own balancing skill and not the vortex that was holding them up.

Our next stop of the day was the ghost town of Jerome, although really this was just a drive-thru and not a stop since our real destination was the stretch of Hwy89A that connects Flagstaff with Prescott. Predictably we got stuck behind slow traffic on the way south but once we got turned around on the far side we had a pretty good run with no traffic and when we did catch up to two cars they both were kind enough to let us pass and continue at our own pace, which was maybe a bit more rapid than they were moving :) This is an exception stretch of road though. It climbs back up to Jerome hanging off the side of the mountain and following the contours the whole way. Every turn you make has you looking past the guardrail and straight off into space since you're overlooking the valley below the whole time. Eventually you come around the final turn and you're suddenly back in Jerome. Jerome is a neat place although we didn't really stop to explore. It's an old mining town built at the top of the mountain and the entire town is built amid the switchbacks with lots of elevation between each street.

It seemed like there were some good restaurants in town but we decided to head back down Sedona for dinner. This time we ended up at Sound Bites and were able to sit on the terrace and enjoy the sunset, and some live music, while we ate. On the walk back to the car we stopped off first for some prickly pear ice cream and finally at a chocolate shop where we loaded up on fudge, homemade peanut butter cups and cherry cordials. Our drive back up to Flagstaff was again fairly spirited as we attempted to keep up with someone who must have had some local knowledge as he was flying! I decided against trying to keep up with his SUV (!) and we enjoyed a more leisurely pace the rest of the way back to the hotel in Flagstaff.