Phoenix
Expedia really screwed me at Christmas, and kept me from seeing my family and friends. However, the upside was that I got a free hotel, which I decided to use to go to visit Phoenix with urban_exotic. That turned out to be the best idea
So, we got in pretty late at night on Friday. urban_exotic had reserved us a compact car. We waited in line forever at the car rental place, and when we got to the front, the lady asked, "How would you like a truck?" Umm, no. We didn't really want a truck. Then she asked if we'd like a minivan. Since we were planning on doing a billion hours of driving, we really DIDN'T want a huge minivan. The lady went back to checking her computer, and finally said, "I'm sorry, all we have are trucks, minivans, or a convertible." And thus began our adventures driving around the desert with the top down!
On Saturday we drove up to Sedona. I can't properly describe how incredibly beautiful the red rocks are when the start to come into view. I can see why the place was considered sacred. It is just amazing. I could easily imagine living there. If I was feeling down, I think just looking at nature in her beauty would lift my spirits. The place is also full of pagan stores and rock shops -- in fact, it seemed like every store was one or the other, or both, and there were a large number of them (especially since the town is so small). My favorite was one where there was a back room full of fae art, intermixed with running water and large windows where the breeze could come in. I think he called it his fairy garden, and the whole place had an excellent feel to it.
In the afternoon, we decided to drive to Flagstaff. In the span of an hour we gained several thousand feet in elevation, and the temperature went from nice 70's skirt weather, to chilly with some snow, to COLD with at least a foot of snow on the ground in Flagstaff. It was like driving from Phoenix to Boston in an hour! Flagstaff had a lovely view as well, of one big mountain. We went to the Lowell observatory, where they discovered pluto (with an asterisk now that it was "widely considered a planet"). I saw, for the first time, Saturn's rings through a telescope, and a nebula -- orion's nebula, a star creation playground. Just amazing!
The next day, we drove around Phoenix a bit, and decided we liked nature better. We took the Apache trail, a crazy winding dirt road that goes up a mountain and then back down again into the valley. This was through a different terrain than Sedona or Flagstaff -- saguaro desert. It's so very green -- with this brushy stuff on the ground, and then these tall cactus which look like men, each one an individual. My favorite part possibly was stopping at Fish Creek, where urban_exotic discovered some people panning for gold. "Find any?" she asked, and they replied that they hadn't yet. "Well, maybe that's why they call it fish creek, not gold creek". :)
The Apache trail ends at the Roosevelt dam, but it's the driving itself that is so impressive -- rolling desert, then high cliff walls, then sparkling incredibly still lakes. Part of what I found so amazing is how wild it is. We were on an old mining trail, but for miles in every direction, there WERE no other roads. Although we weren't far from Phoenix, it did feel that we were very far from civilization indeed, and that you could disappear in a place like this.
On Monday, we went back to Sedona for a bit, and then on to a train ride into the verde canyon. On the drive up to the railroad place, we saw yet another kind of mountain -- these ones big black imposing mountains, not the pine-covered mountains of Flagstaff or the red rocks of Sedona. We had just missed the chocolate lover's festival, so we decided to bring our own chocolate. The verde canyon is one that cannot be reached except by train. The scenery was lovely, again, and we saw some openings where there had been cliff dwellings.
I loved seeing the southwest, and definitely want to go back sometime. And we got sunburned! :)
So, we got in pretty late at night on Friday. urban_exotic had reserved us a compact car. We waited in line forever at the car rental place, and when we got to the front, the lady asked, "How would you like a truck?" Umm, no. We didn't really want a truck. Then she asked if we'd like a minivan. Since we were planning on doing a billion hours of driving, we really DIDN'T want a huge minivan. The lady went back to checking her computer, and finally said, "I'm sorry, all we have are trucks, minivans, or a convertible." And thus began our adventures driving around the desert with the top down!
On Saturday we drove up to Sedona. I can't properly describe how incredibly beautiful the red rocks are when the start to come into view. I can see why the place was considered sacred. It is just amazing. I could easily imagine living there. If I was feeling down, I think just looking at nature in her beauty would lift my spirits. The place is also full of pagan stores and rock shops -- in fact, it seemed like every store was one or the other, or both, and there were a large number of them (especially since the town is so small). My favorite was one where there was a back room full of fae art, intermixed with running water and large windows where the breeze could come in. I think he called it his fairy garden, and the whole place had an excellent feel to it.
In the afternoon, we decided to drive to Flagstaff. In the span of an hour we gained several thousand feet in elevation, and the temperature went from nice 70's skirt weather, to chilly with some snow, to COLD with at least a foot of snow on the ground in Flagstaff. It was like driving from Phoenix to Boston in an hour! Flagstaff had a lovely view as well, of one big mountain. We went to the Lowell observatory, where they discovered pluto (with an asterisk now that it was "widely considered a planet"). I saw, for the first time, Saturn's rings through a telescope, and a nebula -- orion's nebula, a star creation playground. Just amazing!
The next day, we drove around Phoenix a bit, and decided we liked nature better. We took the Apache trail, a crazy winding dirt road that goes up a mountain and then back down again into the valley. This was through a different terrain than Sedona or Flagstaff -- saguaro desert. It's so very green -- with this brushy stuff on the ground, and then these tall cactus which look like men, each one an individual. My favorite part possibly was stopping at Fish Creek, where urban_exotic discovered some people panning for gold. "Find any?" she asked, and they replied that they hadn't yet. "Well, maybe that's why they call it fish creek, not gold creek". :)
The Apache trail ends at the Roosevelt dam, but it's the driving itself that is so impressive -- rolling desert, then high cliff walls, then sparkling incredibly still lakes. Part of what I found so amazing is how wild it is. We were on an old mining trail, but for miles in every direction, there WERE no other roads. Although we weren't far from Phoenix, it did feel that we were very far from civilization indeed, and that you could disappear in a place like this.
On Monday, we went back to Sedona for a bit, and then on to a train ride into the verde canyon. On the drive up to the railroad place, we saw yet another kind of mountain -- these ones big black imposing mountains, not the pine-covered mountains of Flagstaff or the red rocks of Sedona. We had just missed the chocolate lover's festival, so we decided to bring our own chocolate. The verde canyon is one that cannot be reached except by train. The scenery was lovely, again, and we saw some openings where there had been cliff dwellings.
I loved seeing the southwest, and definitely want to go back sometime. And we got sunburned! :)