Jan 12 - Sedona, a town of red rocks and art!

Sedona is a different sort of place.  There are red rocks all around the town which sits down in a valley.  We came in from Flagstaff which brought us down a windy valley which was beautiful.  It dropped us into the downtown area which turned out to be extremely touristy.  To the north and west additional "villages" make up the rest of Sedona.  The homes blend into the hillsides and are almost invisible, the primary architecture is stucco or adobe.  To me it isn't quite as overwhelming as I found it to be in Santa Fe, NM a few years ago.

The town is full of art galleries - the work is beautiful - paintings, bronze sculptures, jewelry, glass, rugs and more.  We saw some Dale Chihuly glass objects in a gallery - he's always a favorite, and the pieces were spectacular.  They're hard to find in a small town like Reno so seeing them was a treat. 

The bronze on the right is of Merlin.  The detail work was incredible, it must have taken the artist months if not years to create the cast. To find it in a shopping center roundabout was a surprise, but nice to find it in a place where the public could appreciate it.

Today we wasted 2 hours in a timeshare presentation - we were hijacked as we walked downtown yesterday and before we knew it we'd committed to attending.  The presentation was compelling to me, but John would have none of it.  And to be truthful, the 5th wheel is our big travel investment for a while.  We did manage to get our Grand Canyon train tickets for next month really cheap so the time was worth it.  

After that we found a nice creekside cafe for lunch where Meghan could sit with us.  The food was extremely good, but once again too much.  The diet begins in Phoenix and we can't get there soon enough.  We worked out for a short time yesterday and it was harder than it should have been.  That was a sign that a serious turnaround is needed. 

We did take a few short drives around town to see the rocks and enjoy the scenery.  We never found a vortex but it was easy to enjoy the serenity anyway. I think we may try and come back before we leave Arizona, but we'll definitely bring back our hiking gear so we can really enjoy the outdoors which is such a focus here. 

We've decided to leave for Phoenix tomorrow - we're ready to get settled and get out of hotels.  And we're tired, we realized today we haven't slowed down since we left Denver.  It's time for a rest, and we need to do laundry.  We'll go back to friends Tony & Jeanette Chavez tomorrow afternoon, tell tall tales, and drink wine.  It will be a great transition to the major part of this adventure - our time in Phoenix. 

As I reflect on the last 2 weeks it turned out to be the perfect time to do this trip.  Yes it was a bit cold, but it was manageable.  The things that worked in our favor were that it was low season which made the hotel rates more reasonable, and of course it wasn't crowded with tourists.  I'd encourage others to try this time of year, it really worked out for us.