Brigadoon

Sedona is a bit like Brigadoon. We found it by accident in 2000 when Jim did a time-share search for “anywhere in the southwest”, it rarely shows up on the weather channel, and there are no road signs for it until you reach the actual highway exit. Yet there are 4.5 million visitors a year to a town of about 20,000. Its three major claims to fame are: amazing red rock scenery, old cowboy movies, and vortexes; the latter attracts about 60% of its visitors because Sedona is considered to be a place of powerful energy. I can attest to the energy as I've had anxiety attacks in a couple of locations (I don’t suffer from anxiety attacks); our GPS developed a new voice and lost all its ‘recently found’ addresses within an hour of our arrival last Friday, and even with 5 active bars on the wireless connection I don’t have internet access unless I leave our apartment. The answer we give to these events, having been here many times, is “what do you expect, it’s Sedona”.

Coombs, Sedona style

it's hard to see, but this is an arch/bridge, open behind

We’ve had lovely but cool days since the snow on the weekend and have enjoyed some gorgeous hikes. Jim went up Doe Mountain, some of us had more sense, and came down with a blister so we’ve been going on easy trails since then. I don’t ‘do’ anything that is too steep. I’ve frozen on the side of Bell Rock and Cathedral Rock for no good reason, and there was a place at Arches National Park in Utah that I had to crawl along hugging the rock face – not because it was dangerous but because there was so much ‘something’ emanating off the rock. Mom and I had the same reaction in the Chapel of the Rock parking lot which faces a huge curved cliff face. It’s weird and interesting, neither good nor bad, just weird.

Does this look a trail to you? It's straight down about a mile. Half of us had more sense and the other half got a blister

my kind of trail - flat

self-portrait

Fay Canyon

a colossal and recent rock fall

pictographs from about 1200

petroglyph complete with spider web

 Sinagua ruin

Jim is playing golf at Seven Canyons tomorrow, supposed to be the IMAX of golf courses, and I will probably  cruise some galleries of which there are many. We’ve been dithering about our route home, beginning on Friday, but have pretty much decided to go north from here instead of west as the coast is supposed to have a storm on the weekend and neither of us is keen to head back into the brutal California traffic. North will take us through Salt Lake City and into Idaho, a route we’ve travelled before and that is reasonably easy. Weather dependent of course. It appears we've missed quite a week of snow and cold in Victoria!