Phoenix/Grand Canyon Trip, Day 4, Saturday, October 17

Got up and got out of this town! Headed back to 100 degree weather in Phoenix, but at least they will have air conditioning!

We decided to drive back a different way and go through Sedona. Boy, am I ever glad we did. As soon as we got off the interstate, the scenery became breathtaking. We stopped at Oak Creek Canyon at a scenic overlook, and there were Indians selling jewelry. It was beautiful stuff, and of course, Mom and I had to buy some! And of course, we took lots of pictures of the view. In this area, there are plenty of trees with their leaves turning, and that made the view even more beautiful, if that is even possible.

As we continued to drive, we were going up a mountain and every turn brought some new amazing view to ooh and ahh over. We stopped as often as we could and it was safe. I took pictures of as many highway signs as I could... ones we don't have back east.

Then we came into Sedona. Traffic was backed up and the shops were incredibly busy, but we managed to find a parking space right on the street, so we decided to walk around for a bit. We had to say we had shopped in Sedona! :) We had lunch at a most excellent BBQ place. Then we walked and looked and shopped. There is a lot to do here, tours, etc. There is never enough time on a trip to do everything that looks interesting! There are a lot of art galleries here... but as I told Mom later, Sedona must not be the home to starving artists, but rather the ones who have made it and made it well! You can tell there is a lot of money here... the houses are huge and set on the side of the mountain. There is a lot of new age stores here, too. As a matter of fact, just this week, they had three people die in a "sweat box" as part of a new age retreat weekend. A sweat box is supposed to represent a spirtual cleansing... you go into this tent and they pour water over hot rocks to produce steam... and you sweat out your body's iimpurities. I actually saw Morgan Spurlock do this on his show "30 Days" while he was staying on an Indian Reservation. I don't remember exactly how long he stayed in there, but it seems like it was 45 minutes or so. The people who got ill and died in Sedona were in there for 2 hours! That does seem excessive.

As we left Sedona, we continued to stop at scenic overlooks and view all the beauty we could! It is red rock country (In Red Rock Canyon, actually) and after leaving the area, the regular desert mountains looked plain! Still pretty, but not as spectacular as they seemed just a couple of days before.

We stopped just before reaching Phoenix at a Pioneer Living History Museum... a recreation of a Pioneer village. We were disappointed because they were closing an hour early, so we didn't get to see everything. That ended up being OK actually cause it was very HOT (Phoenix hit 102 yesterday!) and the village wasn't as put together as we had imagined. Some of the buildings had been moved there... and that was all. They were gutted. No attempt had been made to renovate them for display. Many of the wagons sitting around were the same way... broken wheels, old lumber lying in them... What they had done was neat. And of course we took lots of pictures. I even used a hitching post as a tripod and got a picture of us together on the schoolhouse steps!

I have dreams of many scrapbook pages... some I can already see in my head. "Signs of Arizona" for the highway signs; Plants of the west (with all the pictures of cactus I have taken!); Pages upon pages of Grand Canyon pictures; even a Fall page with a picture I took of Mom in front of a tree in full fall color with orange leaves at Oak Creek Canyon. I hope these ideas will stay with me until next year when I finally get these pictures scrapbooked!

After leaving the pioneer village, we got caught in a good old Phoenix traffic jam. I think it was due to road work. This is another instance where my GPS has paid for herself many times over... we got off the interstate and she took us on a detour that got us right back on track on no time. We found our motel and checked in. Thank goodness for luggage carts and a/c!! LOL We went to dinner at Applebee's and had the nicest server... what a refreshing change! Then I was literally in bed before 10!! How can driving make one soooo tired?

And I will tell you that this desert air and heat does make you thirsty. I am chugging water and still I'm thirsty!

Now I'm caught up on my updates... even if I had to get up at 2 am (here) to do it! I guess I owe the drunks in the hall who woke me up some thanks for getting me out of bed to do this... nah, I don't.