Sedona, Arizona: We are on the home stretch, Dear Reader! The 4L's are coming to our house in a week and y'all know how we dawdle along. We are going to spend two nights in Sedona and hightail it to La Quinta in two days. Can we do it? Our house sitter will have our house back in order for our arrival. DT and I will need to get everything out of the RV, resituated, and we seriously need haircuts. Then prep for Labor Day with the kids will commence!
DT began his day with a 75 minute bike ride around Grand Canyon National Park. He just loves all the roads that are not accessible to private cars. The buses don't mind bike riders and he really enjoyed his ride - though it seemed to be all uphill.
We left Grand Canyon around 10a and headed south on 180 to 64, and did a drive-through pretty Williams, Arizona (on historic route 66), before taking a bit of a switch-over by going east again on I-40 to continue south to Sedona on the gorgeous scenic Highway 89A that follows Oak Creek down the most gorgeous gorge into Sedona. Red cliffs tower over the teeniest creek - sometimes without water at all - and nearly every state/county park (even the fun slippery rock water slide portion) is closed (blocked-off to even enter) due to such high fire danger. Since our last visit to this canyon, the state of Arizona have added a siren system to warn travelers of flood/fire emergencies. Just tune your radio of a certain FM station and you will be alerted to the hazard. What a great idea!
We didn't get into Sedona until after 1p, but found a place to park one block above the main drag - paying $4 for two hours. This gave us enough time for lunch and a cruise through the tourist shops. (This is our 4th (5th?) visit to Sedona and we do not need any more stuff.) Of course, we had Mexican food. You can take the girl out of La Quinta...
The shopping in Sedona is a bit more upscale than any place we have been in a while, but it is still a lot of tee shirts and sweatshirt/hoodies, silver jewelry and magnets.
Instead of driving directly to our campsite after lunch, we drove up to the Sedona Airport viewpoint which offers a stunning vista of the entire city and many of the amazing rock formation surrounding the city. Parking is $3 for cars and $6 for RVs.
At the vista is a metal art thingy with the names of the rock formations, as a guide.
One of the most famous formations is the Coffee Pot... which, I am not gonna lie, does not look in anyway like a coffee pot to me. Maybe it does look like a tea kettle? Can't really be sure, and it seems to look different from every angle.
Under this red tower, a driver will find Nescafe Drive, Coffee Cup Drive, Maxwell House Drive... well, you get the idea. All named well-before Starbucks, obviously.
I know, it is just absolutely unbelievable - and after spending two days looking down at gorgeous red rock formations, we now get to look up!
And I am most very very very happy to report we are no longer at 7-8000 feet. We are drowning in air at 4250 feet! The first time we have camped below 5000 feet for around a month.
FYI: Our house is at 24 feet.
I prepped black bean enchiladas before we left this morning, so dinner was easy and dinner was late. We are camped along Oak Creek (the same creek we followed along the canyon into Sedona). It is quiet and the campground is much improved since our last visit. We love all the old shade trees in the campground, but I was worried the Starlink (aka ELON) would not find a satellite. It did. How, I do not know, but we were able to watch the Dodgers win over Detroit. Dave went down to the creek and captured - what he called - a calming water-sound video for your enjoyment:
Until my next update, I remain, your Red Rock correspondent.
Campsite Information: Rancho Sedona RV Park
When we first visited Sedona in the 70’s (a very different place then….) we were told that Coffee Pot reminded people of an old timey coffee percolator. I guess you have to squint a bit!