SEDONA (April 2006)

 

Sedona is one of my favorite places to visit and have been there several times and once again decided to spend my spring break there.  Lanie and I left late Sunday afternoon and since it’s a 6-7 hour drive, we would be getting to Sedona pretty late.  

 

Then again, Lanie will tell you that the drive took so long because I was driving too slow.  She’ll say that I was only going 55 mph but that is so not true.  I had it on cruise control at about 75 mph so I don’t know where she gets her information from.  Just because she drives like Mario Andretti and has been trained in evasive police maneuvers doesn’t mean I drive like an old lady!

 

Anyways, we got there at about 2:00 am and to add to our tiredness, I was a little lost and it took a bit of driving around to find the hotel.  It didn’t help that Lanie was calling me names for not having the correct directions.  Like who needs the pressure at 2 am?!  Needless to say, we finally found it and collapsed into bed, glad for the rest and looking forward to a relaxing week.

 

As you can see in the photos, the weather was perfect for hiking and photographing.  Sedona is a photographer’s dream and thank goodness that I finally bought a digital camera!  Otherwise, I would be burning so much film with all the photogenic spots around this awesome place.    

 

Cathedral Rocks is supposed to be the most visited place in Arizona and it’s easy to see why.  Of course, Lanie will tell you that she has better shots of this scene than I do.  And she does.  But that’s only because she didn’t call me over when the clouds were all dramatic over the rock formations.  By the time I got to the scene from a different place, the clouds were all gone!  

 

She still likes to rub it in that she got better photos than me.  Whatever!  I wanted to hike up to the top of Cathedral Rocks but we decided to eat dinner at a great Thai restaurant and by the time we were done, it was too late to be hiking.  

 

We could have done some night hiking, but that would entail the possibility of running into Sedona’s famous “havelinas” (the town even has sculptures of the havelinas all over the place.)   Just a fancy name for wild pigs.  I have seen one and they’re pretty scary!  So, don’t laugh…wild pigs aren’t exactly the friendliest looking or sounding animals and being chased in the dark by Porky Pig is not exactly my idea of a good time.

 

This is us at the top of Soldier’s Pass.  A great hike and the scenery is unbelievable.  At one point, we lost the trail and it seemed that we had to turn around.  In fact, we ran into a few people in the same predicament, but they gave up too easily.  Tourists!   Since “Lewis and Clark” were just about ready to bushwhack through the wilderness with our machetes, we kept searching and voila!  We found the trail and eventually ended up at the top of the pass.   (And yes, I had my requisite pan de sal so there was no fainting on this hike.  I don’t remember the total distance, but I think it was 3-4 miles roundtrip.)   

 

We were rewarded with beautiful scenery. Nothing is better (except may hot chocolate on a cold day) than hiking on a beautiful day and no one else is on the trail.  Our lives are way too busy and we don’t make enough time to simply slow down and just be.  Hiking in Sedona is one sure way to slow things down.

 

On the way down from Soldier’s Pass, we passed by rock formations called the Seven Sacred Pools.  So named by the native Americans because when water was scarce in the summer months, they knew to come to this spot for some water to help a thirsty traveler.  It’s hard to see but in of of the pictures, Lanie is actually giving me the finger!  How rude!  She is such a dork sometimes.  I’m sure Ansel Adams never had to put up with rude cousins on his photo hikes.  And his cousins probably called him over when they found some cool stuff to photograph; unlike someone I know, but I’m not naming names.  

 

Anyways…in some of the photos, we are actually being nice to each other and posing for the camera.  We were still at the sacred pools and even though you can’t see them, there was a crowd of people above us and being all “touristy” (as if we weren’t) and it took a while to set up this shot as these people kept getting in the way.  The nerve!  That and I had to leap over a yawning chasm as I had to put the camera on timer and jump over.  Okay, so it wasn’t quite a chasm but it could have been with my short legs and all.

 

To get to the next place, we had to do some off-roading.  The road was rough and it felt like I was driving on a series of speed bumps.  We hiked up to the Devil’s arch, which is about 200 feet off the ground and in some places, the trail was quite narrow and steep, but we made it up there.  When we got to the top, Lanie wanted to do pull ups off the side of the arch!  Wonder Woman wanted to hang 200 feet in the air and do pull ups!  And we know she would have done it too had not the voice of reason, me, spoken up.  

 

As you can see, we finally decided to just take pictures close to the edge.  And yes, even though I detest heights, I sat pretty close to the edge for this photo.  That’s right folks, no Photoshop trickery going on here; that’s really me at the edge of a place called Devil’s Arch.  Not exactly a name to instill confidence in me. 

 

There are a lot more photos and if you want to see more go to my web gallery at http://photo.net/photos/Zoe%20Pamintuan