Phoenix Trip - Part 1

After my roses, Bill offered to fly me out to Phoenix for the weekend. He was stuck there for work and after all, it WAS our anniversary. So I went! I landed in Phoenix on Thursday night in the middle of a dust storm. It was the roughest flight ever. We went and ate dinner, then to the nearest hotel. We were tired. This was the view from the hotel window the next morning. Hey! This looks like Arizona! This hotel had locked doors. Bill had to be buzzed in the night before. And also buzzed out! Strange.We had decided to go up to Sedona. Apparently there were sights to see. So we headed north. This sign says Carefree Highway

The mountains we tall, but oddly flat - as though someone had come along with a giant chainsaw and buzzed off the tops of these mountains.

Shivers..... Bloody Basin Road....

Much of the landscaping looks like this.

Hah! CVS sells Liquor!! I like Arizona!

This is Montezuma's Rock something. Home of cliff dwellers long ago. That was their main home up there.

These holes are the windows of their neighbors...

These flat square areas are the remains of more homes.
Hey this tree is disguised as a US soldier. Camo... never mind...
We briefly went into the Apache reservation, but seemed all there was to do was gamble - one vice neither Bill nor I ever managed to pick up. So we left soon.
Forest?? Exactly what qualifies something as a forest these days?

Phoenix Trip - Part 2

As we began to approach Sedona, that's where we began to really see some serious stuff. Red rocks.

(And an outhouse in the middle of it.... I noticed in AZ there's a water cooler and a bathroom on every corner....)


There was tons of roadwork up around the Sedona area, in fact their tourism department had a kind of gam - Follow the Red Rocks Road - to try to keep you from going around to avoid the road work. The little shops and markets were just too difficult to get into so we didn't try. We were headed for these mountains, anyway.

This is downtown Sedona. A Gatlinburg-type tourist area with fudge shops and stores selling copper bracelets and great big pencils and things.

We ate, of course. This is fried cactus! It was pretty good, but that dipping sauce tasted very Chinesey - we hadn't expected a Chinese flavor with the cactus. The cactus itself tasted like fried squash kind of.
Cool! A big horse.
Awww.... he's a gelding...

Snoopy Rock - Looks like snoopy lying on his dog house.

Phoenix Trip - Part 3

Heading north out of Sedona is a scenic byway, so we took it. Really nice views on a very winding incline.

This was the view from Airport Rd. It was unbelievable. I tried to do a panoramic thing here since there were mountains no matter where you turned.

Phoenix Trip - Part 4

Next, we went to see the Cross on the Rocks. This is the view from the parking lot. Amazing.

So I decided to get a picture of me and Bill by setting the timer on my camera. Oops! Didn't set the timer!
Okay, I set it that time. But didn't get the pose in time.
There, that did it! Uh, I thought the camera had gone off already, but it hadn't.
Okay! This time it worked!

This tree is absolutely just growing from a rock!!
The view from inside the church. I wondered whether taking a picture in a Catholic church would be tacky.
But figured, nah....

This rock is the Mary and Baby Jesus formation, viewable from the back side of the church.
And someone built one heck of a rectory! (just kidding - I don't know what the heck this is, but it's also visible from there, and quite close.)
Had to get a picture of the mailbox.
This is the church from the road. The front view. It is massive, absolutely massive. Several stories high, I'd say. The little chapel is only in the very tippy top of this.

Cathedral Rock
Everywhere you turn, there are sights you just can't believe.
It was truly awe inspiring.