Sedona

Sedona was fantastic! I drove up, with passengers Lois and Ted. I drove last year with Lois (and Michael and Jack), but last year, Lois had not yet met Ted! We had lots of laughs and the 4.5 hour drive was very pleasant. We caravaned behind Jack and Kathy's RV. Lunch was at Byerly's Amish Cafe, the same place where we ate last year on the way to Grand Canyon.

The trip was with the hiking club, so of course there was hiking involved! Our first day, Tuesday, we hiked around Bell Rock, with a nice detour up Bell Rock. There was a vortex on Bell Rock. Sedona vortexes (yes, that is the correct plural in Sedona) are locations where spiritual energy is said to swirl, making prayer, meditation, and healing more effective.




There were parties around the pool, board games, shopping expeditions, fine dining, and the drinking of many margaritas.

Oh, and the hiking! On Wednesday, the Hardy Hikers did a 9-mile hike on the Munds Wagon Trail and connecting to the Schnebly Hill Trail.









The first part of the trail was a gently undulating and beautiful walk, which crossed and paralleled some stream flows, and was troublingly close to a jeep road. After we got onto the Schnebly Hill Trail, the gentle part was over. The trail took a sharp upward turn, finishing our altitude gain of 1500 feet. We didn't make it all the way to the top before we turned back.



There were rock baskets along the way, marking the trail. They are serious about their cairns in Sedona! In the rest of the world (that I've seen), the cairns are just a short stack of rocks.

And, since you've been so well-behaved, here's a panorama I shot of some of Sedona's red rocks. This was done in Photoshop CS3 using 4 photos: