Flying & Staying Friday and Saturday

 

Our first slick rock. Pretty cool!

We arrived on time after an easy flight, picked up the car, and went to meet Lynn at the Holiday Inn where her boss was staying – they’d been meeting with donors to the Botanic Gardens. By then it was rush hour, so we stayed at the hotel restaurant for a drink. I’d found a fun sounding restaurant for dinner, but by the time we got there they were jammed, so we went across the street to a pizza/gelato restaurant. The food was mediocre but quick. I had meatballs. We had two cars so I went with Lynn, and we had a nice drive up to Sedona except for a short nervous time just after we’d left Phoenix when Lynn realized we didn’t have much gas – and we were out in the boonies. We did find a gas station in time. When we got to the resort we weren’t able to change the rooms, so we had two small studios. The best thing was the sky – Sedona is a dark sky city and at altitude, so the stars were stunning.

Saturday

The signage is very good in Sedona

We got moving fairly late, and then spent a while waiting around the lobby and our room while Lynn tried to get to talk to a manger who might be able to change our rooms. Eventually we gave up and headed out to Safeway and to the Chamber of Commerce visitor center to get maps and ideas. We spent some time walking around the shops on the main street, which are very touristy. Also Sedona is a center of woo-woo (4 vortexes!) so lots of crystal shops and places to have your aura photographed. By then it was lunchtime, so we had lunch at Javelina, a very good Mexican restaurants. It was sunny and beautiful so we ate outside – it was just barely warm enough, and not quite when the wind blew. After lunch we went for our first Sedona hike, an interlocking trail system around the Yavapai viewpoint. It was very crowded but also very stunning vistas. We were on one trail when we met an older couple coming the other way, and as we passed the man said “Don’t get old”, which Dave heard as a warning about aging, but we discovered he meant that the view doesn’t lose its wonder. While we were chatting with them a biker walked over and started telling us (in great detail) about a hike to a place called “Chicken Point” that he said was the best hike in Sedona. It sounded complicated and very long.

Periodically Lynn would attempt to find out about our rooms, but the manager was always “in a meeting”. 

We went back to our rooms for a short while and actually were able to talk to Nahal, the manager, who explained that it was complicated about changing rooms and asked us to let her work on it until the next morning. I should explain that Lynn has shares in a couple timeshares (not this place) and the rules about what she can and can’t use her timeshare points for are not as clear as you might like. Dave and I also hit the Staples for new earbuds for me (I forgot to bring mine) and got them for ½ off, which was very nice.

We should have made dinner reservations as soon as we’d decided to go to Sedona, but didn’t, so they were a bit hard to come by. For our first dinner we headed North to The Table at Junipine Resort, about ½ hour away. It was a small cozy restaurant with a friendly waiter and very tasty food, especially Dave’s pork chop and the roasted veggie side. It was a great introduction to Sedona.