On Wednesday, June 24, we were in Sedona, AZ. I’m a little at a loss for how much to describe because Dave’s folks will be going there this summer and I don’t want to give it all away. So, Bob and Mary, consider this your spoiler alert! Just know that you are going to have an amazing time, and we have lots of suggestions for you.
So, we woke up in the LoLoMai Springs Outdoor Resort (read as: campground) in Cornville, AZ, on the Oak Creek.
Oak Creek is an important water feature in Sedona. The first thing we noticed when we went out into Sedona was the amazing red rocks that loom over you at all times. The shapes in the rocks are just astounding. They are everywhere you look. We started out by going to the Sedona Chamber of Commerce where we received excellent advice and local maps from a retired Michigander. The local maps had one feature in particular that I had forgotten to expect. Apparently, Sedona is a haven for the crystal-loving spiritual set. This is not really obvious until you look at the map.
Yes, that is a map that includes locations of vortices. These are apparently locales that feature some crazy electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic forces that are supposed to be invigorating and spiritually cleansing, or some such nonsense. Once we saw this on the map, we then started noticing shops and storefronts boasting spiritual services of a crystalline nature…and whatnot.
We then headed to lunch at 11:30 am. The restaurant we went to, the Oak Creek Brewing Company, was in a little shopping center called Tlaquepaque.
I don’t know what that means, but I’ll bet it’s something good, like “Home of Overpriced Arts and Crafts” or “Gimme.” It was a complex filled with little nifty art galleries showcasing native American images and wacky contemporary art. The courtyard was a sculpture garden that was exceptionally lovely, I thought.
We then headed to lunch at 11:30 am. The restaurant we went to, the Oak Creek Brewing Company, was in a little shopping center called Tlaquepaque.
I don’t know what that means, but I’ll bet it’s something good, like "Home of Overpriced Arts and Crafts" or "Gimme." It was a complex filled with little nifty art galleries showcasing native American images and wacky contemporary art. The courtyard was a sculpture garden that was exceptionally lovely, I thought.
We headed upstairs for lunch, which was a smidge pricy, but it was good. It was recommended by the aforementioned Michigander. The hostess sat us by a window with a particularly lovely view.
We headed upstairs for lunch, which was a smidge pricy, but it was good. It was recommended by the aforementioned Michigander. The hostess sat us by a window with a particularly lovely view. The Oak Creek Brewery fed us well. Dave had a rare burger (he’d been craving such a thing for a bit), and I had a really delicious Southwestern barbequed chicken salad. Yes, it had corn in it. I love corn. So what?!
After lunch, we began our trek out into the rocks. We followed the Michigander’s advice and went to the Bell Rock which gave us such beautiful vistas as these:
There are DOZENS more where this came from.
We then went to the Chapel of the Cross, a tall concrete chapel built into the side of a hill. The story of it is quite fascinating. The artist, a Catholic woman who passed in 1988, conceived the idea of a chapel that was shaped like a vertical cross in the 1930s while in New York. She looked all over the world for a place to construct her chapel, and finally settled on Sedona.
The brutality of the concrete against this rock setting is striking, but when we entered, for some reason, it immediately brought me to tears. The inside of the chapel was dark in the desert sun and the pews sat empty with a few candles burning here and there. You could smell the censor smoke from outside. I couldn’t bear to take a picture in there because, after all, it is a church.
Around the perimeter of the chapel were the Stations of the Cross made by the designer of the Chapel; however, instead of images, they were simply the Roman numerals. The wonderful thing about them, again, was the brutality of the figures: they were created using slices of railroad ties and railroad spikes. Stunningly simple and lovely.
After the Chapel of the Cross, we went out to nowhereland to see the Honanki ruins. In order to get out there, we had to drive like 12 miles of unpaved, dirt roads.
It took us about 30 minutes to get there because we had to drive so slowly to avoid breaking into pieces in the Tan Van! Here’s what the GPS thought of that:
I concur.
Honanki was the location of a cliff-dwelling society that existed over 800 years ago.
They built their three-story pueblo community against the cliffs and left hundreds of cliff paintings (rock art) on the rocks. Again, did little Honanki Billy get his hand slapped for writing on the walls? Not likely.
There are still portions of the walls left in which you can see the 800-year-old prints of hands that built those walls. Amazing. I was pretty taken-aback by the whole thing—mostly because I don’t understand how they survived out there. The people who lived here were considered to be one of the Sinagua peoples (meaning "without water"). How does a group survive without water?
After driving back down those dirt roads for another 30 minutes, we called it a day and headed for Flagstaff. There, we had some delicious, standard Italian fare at a place called Strombolli’s.
It was great…just like Sal’s in Durham (did that place just move?). It was in the parking lot of a little shopping center that featured this little gem:
From there, we headed to the awesomest KOA EVER! Matt and Sutapa: this is the kind of place people like me could get used to. We saw lots of HUGE RVs of people who live there either all summer or all year round. Cool, but not for the lonely camping in the woods types. This was definitely the “rack ‘em and stack ‘em” type of campground. We haven’t taken to that well in the past week, but this place was like moving into a neighborhood of people who want to hang out with you.
We took a walk around when we first got there, and we met a couple of guys who had a dog named, “Lea.” She was a pretty girl, but David made a dog noise that startled her and got her barking. The owner thanked us for leaving her alone. Whoops.
We had a LOT of fun at this place anyhow. It had two of those wacky teepee style kabins that the KAO is famous for. For some reason, no one was in them! What the heck?!
Dave and I have been taken with the absurdity of the KOA’s need to replace hard “c”s with “k”s. We’ve started putting K in front of everything camping related. For example, “Could you help me with the k-tent?” or “I’m going to go to the k-bathroom.” We think it’s hilarious.
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