Workout Wednesday

There were ballons outside our window! 

Oh my goodness, are you exhausted yet? We weren’t… quite.

Can you see where we went?

We had a two-car hike planned, and dropped Lynn’s car off at the Little Horse trailhead. We had planned to be out on the trail by 8:30-ish, but were foiled when we arrived at the other end and discovered that the parking lot at the Chapel of the Holy Cross doesn’t open until 9. We ended up parking a little way away at the trailhead for the Mystic Trail, where we met two women who were setting out to do the hike to Chicken Point, which they said was the best hike in Sedona. “Turn right at every junction!” they told us as they headed out. We did a short out and back on the beginning of the trail, waiting for the chapel parking to open. We got a good parking space even if it did say that it was only for the chapel and all others would be towed.

We walked up to the Chapel which was completely uncrowded.  I wasn’t a fan of it. From the patio outside you can see that the very large house which we saw from the trail we were on earlier not only has 4 enormous garages but also a telescope dome! We wondered if they needed a tour guide for the stars. Then we hiked down to the porta-potties and then back up to the car and off onto the trail (chapel trail to little horse), which was lovely, going through different plant zones and different views. At one point we ran into the two women we’d seen at the other trailhead. It’s worth noting that they did the whole chicken point walk in under two hours. The two things that made us nervous – that we’d parked Lynn’s car in the wrong place, and that our car would be towed – didn’t happen, so we call this good. We drove back to the resort and got cleaned up for lunch.

We're having fun, even if my hat is too big.

Since we hadn’t had any Mexican food for over 12 hours it was time to head to the large side of Tlaquepque and have lunch at El Rincon, another Mexican restaurant notable for excellent cheese enchiladas and strong margaritas. We’d called ahead and they told us they weren’t busy, but of course by the time we got there they were. We gave them Lynn’s phone number and headed out to do some looking in shops and also to listen to the amazing German man playing native American flutes. We barely got any shopping or listening done before Lynn got the text that our table was ready, and it turned out to be an outdoor table under a colorful umbrella. The weather had been getting steadily warmer, and it was very comfortable sitting outside, sipping margaritas (or water in my case) and eating yummy food.

After lunch we did a little more shopping and listening. I found long black coat with orange tiger stripes and a pair of black flowing pants to wear to dinner, and we all spent some time chatting with the flute player. Then it’s back to the rooms. (Sedona Summit, if you’re wondering).

Dave and I were feeling the need for some cardio, so he went off for a power hike on the trails that leave from Cultural Park just down the street, and I did a Barre 3 workout and some Pilates. Lynn took a short nap and watched me work out. Then it was time to get cleaned up for dinner.

That sky... those rocks..

We’d been looking forward to this dinner, since it was at an Italian restaurant that had won an award for their wine list. Dave was hoping to supplement his reading with some glasses of unusual Italian wines, and Lynn and I were looking forward to helping him. It turned out that the restaurant (Dahl and Di Luca) was serving food from my childhood, with a limited and not very interesting wine by the glass list, and a server who had no interest in talking wine. While the food and wine weren’t we were hoping for (Pazzo, anyone?) it was still a tasty and enjoyable dinner (I had meatballs).  On the drive home Dave continued our current streak of having animals jump out of us - we almost hit some javelinas (you might know them as peccaries).

It was an early dinner, so we had time afterwards to work on the National Parks puzzle we bought at Walnut Canyon, which turned out to be harder than we expected. We persevered.