Road trip part 1: Sedona
This last week we went on a huge road trip around the southwest!
I'm going to have to split the post into several because it is definitely too long to do all at once. We started early on Thursday morning, driving three or four hours East into the desert. Our halfway point for lunch was a little town called Oatman. It used to be a mining town back in the day, and descendants of the working donkeys still freely roam the streets. In fact, we saw several trying to get into the gift shop!
After eating, we went outside, and they were setting up for a gunfight! They had three guys dressed as cowboys planning a bank heist and preparing to shoot. They had to pause for some donkeys to wander through, but they were very entertaining.
After the shootout it was back to the car and on to our final destination of Sedona. Mitchell was driving now and he got to drive the route 66 sidewinder. We know this was a thing as at the end of the road there was a gift shop with t-shirts saying "I survived the sidewinder". It was a very windy road, and narrow in places, but we've done worse by now.
It was another couple of hours to Sedona, so we did make a small stop off for ice-cream. It Mitchell a little while to realise I'd gone rogue and was no longer following the GPS and was instead driving through a very cute little town in hunt of a McFlurry I'd seen advertised on the billboards as we approached. We actually ended up stopping for Dairy Queen which neither of us had had before, and it was pretty tasty and made a nice break. Then it was back on the road.
As we drove through the tall red rocks and canyons into Sedona, it started to rain very heavily which was a little scary on the winding roads, but as we entered the town it brightened up and we even saw a rainbow over the mountain.
We checked into our motel and then immediately set off for a hike before it got too dark.
Our first hike of the week was the cathedral rock. It was only a mile round trip, but it turned out to be quite a challenge! The first part was uphill, but then after a while it became more like rock scrambling, with unclear pathways and no trail. But by the time we got to the top, it was definitely worth it! The valley was much greener than I expected, there were trees all across the rocks and into the valley.
At the top, we caught the sunset just as it dipped below the horizon.
After that it was back down the mountain before it got too dark. The last 15 minutes or so were in darkness, but by that point we were on the trail again and made it back by starlight. We stopped for some Chinese food on the way back to the motel which was well earned after our big day (the first of many).
The next day we were up early for breakfast in the motel (which was a selection of pastries and fruit in the lobby) and then drove to the shuttle bus stop. I'd heard that parking at the trailheads in Sedona were a nightmare as they are becoming increasingly popular and the town is not equipped to deal with so many tourists yet.
The shuttle brought us to the long canyon trailhead and we started out. This trail was fairly flat, and after about 45 minutes we reached the end point. We stopped in a place called the birthing cave which looked out over the landscape and had a ridge along the edge which you could stand on for some incredible photos.
We took the trail back, seeing lots of butterflies on the way, and caught the shuttle back to town. We stopped in a very hippy cafe for lunch. It had all sorts of organic snacks to purchase and we sat in the outside garden. I had a salad and Mitchell had a bean chili, and the mosquitoes had Mitchell.
After eating, we walked up the other shuttle stop. It took us a while to get up there, and we just missed a bus, but the views from the bench were as good as anything else we'd seen so far so we didn't mind.
The bus arrived and we went to the Soldier's pass trailhead. This was a long trail, but we only went as far as the seven sacred pools. We walked though plenty of trees to get there, and the pools were very interesting to find in the middle of all that. Mitchell had a little lie down and we found tadpoles and tiny frogs in the pools!
That evening, we bought some Indian food from the restaurant down the block, but when we went to pick it up it was raining again, so we rushed out with our coats and brought it back to the room to eat at our little table. We were lucky that it had been dry for most of the day until then.
Saturday was our busiest day, we had a lot of ground to cover and a lot to see. We checked out early and ate our breakfast on the little bench outside our motel room. On the way out, we passed a sign for a forest overlook, so we stopped quickly, and it was definitely worth it, the view over the trees was amazing.
We drove to our first stop of the day, the sunset crater volcano. This was a frozen lava field, which was spiky and dark, but it had bright red flowers poking up through the rocks. We took the small loop around the field and the bottom of the extinct volcano. It was very cool to see something so different, but it was on to the next stop.
As part of the same park, there was the Wupatki National Monument. This village was created by the original inhabitants of the land in the 1100s. There were two housing blocks with several rooms, a round ballcourt and a round community room. They were beginning to crumble, but they were all built with red rocks and it was fascinating to walk around and learn about what all the different areas were used for, and see some real American history.
We then followed the road and went to see some more smaller pueblos in the area. We were going to stop at one of the picnic areas for lunch, but it had started to rain again, so we ate in the car. Walking around these crumbing ruins on the tops of hills, in the rain, surrounded by green grass, we thought we could almost be in Scotland!
Our next stop was a little while away, and as we drove further north we could see a large rain cloud in the distance. We also started to see lightning coming from it, although we couldn't hear any thunder over the engine. The rain started to come down, but only a little bit, as we were only skirting the storm. When we arrived at our destination, it was still dry, but we could now hear some thunder in the distance.
Our stop here was a tour of antelope canyon. It's on Navajo land, so the only way to visit it is to book a tour with a guide. We parked in the car park and got in the tour van. It took a very off road route through the canyon which was all rutted from previous flash floods. It parked up and we all got out. The canyon was narrow with swirling orange sides, carved out from water flowing through. Out guide told us all about how it was made and where to take the best photos. We got some great ones and the tour was very cool.
After the tour, we still had one more stop. We at some snacks and then drove a few minutes back down the road to horseshoe bend. This is part of the Grand Canyon, which I had seen all over Instagram and is a very famous picture spot. It was a busy spot, and there were lots of tourists walking along the half mile trail. When we were about halfway down, it started to rain again, and this time it was pretty heavy. I think this worked out well, as a lot of people decided to leave at this point, and the viewpoint was less crowded than it could have been. We got to the edge and looked down, and it was so much bigger than I thought it would be. There were some cars and boats by the river below, and they were so small. It really was wroth the stop, and not just for the photos. I managed to get the iconic picture of my feet hanging over the edge, and even though it was a VERY long way down, I felt pretty sturdy looking down from the side of the canyon.
The next part of the plan was to drive to our cabin for the night, but we kept finding cool things to stop at on the way. We went over a very large bridge which crossed the Colorado river, and it had a stopping point where you could walk across.
Just a couple of miles along from this, we saw a weird little site called the cliff dwellers and decided to stop. It was a series of small houses carved into rocks, and the rocks themselves were perched on top of small pedestals carved by the wind.
After that, it really was on to the cabin. As we entered the Grand Canyon National Park, the sun was setting and I had to drive down all the unlit roads in complete darkness. But we arrived safely to the lodge and got checked in.
Go to part 2...
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