Sedona – kristilynk

It’s good to be back! Well, I think? I guess it depends on how well this post goes. I am extremely out of blogging/writing practice. I didn’t bother to check my page to see how long it has been since I’ve posted ANYTHING. I would venture to guess it’s been at least since the last NY.

In 2017, I denied you access to my stories and photos of travel, monotony, ups and downs. Quick summary ~ (based on memory so I’m sure more things happened but I can’t remember everything). My memories are all documented on my phone and I don’t know how to extract them to my laptop so here goes..2017 highlights! Mother/daughter trip to San Diego to visit friends, photo shoot road trips with the husbands band, lunch dates with the bestie, annual Backwoods Beerfest (camping with booze on the Mogollon Rim), trip to visit friends in North Carolina (love it there), Roger Waters concert, Mother/Daughter trip to Amsterdam and Spain, Great Christmas with family and friends.

Cut to:

The last day of 2017 was spent with the husband and our friend visiting from Switzerland. Where do you take a guy from the cold mountains of Switzerland when he visits Arizona?

Flagstaff, AZ. of course 😉 We jumped in my car and headed north.

First stop was lunch at SnowBowl. The lunch was subpar but the views and the company were supreme.

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Sadly, Arizona has had zero snow..look at how dry the trees and their surroundings are

All the snow behind us, for the skiers, was man-made. After lunch we decided to venture off to a place neither Jason nor I had ever been. The Lava River Cave. It is located about 18 miles west of Snow Bowl so it took us no time to get there. It is off a dirt road, so I did worry we were headed in the wrong direction, but it turned out to be an OK drive even with my little Volkswagen.

The cave entrance is only a short jaunt, through the pines, from the parking lot.

I am claustrophobic and we only had cell phones to light our path so I didn’t think we were going to get out of there alive. As per usual, my worries were unwarranted, walking over the rocks down into the cave was cake and super open, not like a spelunking cave at all. 🙂 P.S. don’t ever ask me to go spelunking…not doin’ it!

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VICTORIUS!

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We made it about half way through and my cell phone died leaving me with no light source, I had to walk up all in Jasons business to follow his light. A few times, I couldn’t keep up and had to stop dead in my tracks and cry, “Help me, I’m stuck”.

We made it out alive! 🙂

If you’re ever in the area, you should check it out. It’s pretty amazing this tube, just under a mile long, was formed around 700,000 years ago from melted rocks..

You can read more about it here: Lava River Cave

Daylight was fading fast so we decided to head south, made a pit stop in Sedona so our Swiss friend could absorb the spiritual vortex mojo of this great locale. We did arrive just in time for him to see the great red rocks of the area but the sun quickly disappeared. Grabbed a cappuccino to go and head for home.

All in all it was a great way to end 2017.

With that, I will end this post with a visual of how my day one 2018 was spent. Perfectly.

Tent – tarp = waking up with the sun..which is O.K by me!

I mean..who wants to waste a perfectly gorgeous day in nature…sleeping it away?? Not this lady!

Darn, I just realized..I completely forgot to take a snapshot of the mess I woke up to. When I sat up for the first time I peeked out the mesh of the tent and spotted a H.U.G.E crow wondering around our campsite. He picked up, what looked to be, a piece of bread and fluttered himself up onto the bench of the picnic table. This guy was extremely “healthy”. Now I’m really bummed I didn’t get a photo of him, I just tried to Google “fat crow” and “huge crow” and NOTHING came up as big as the crow I saw… and no one else was awake to verify my story….oh well just believe it..

I crawled out of the tent and all three of the bags Jason had put in the tree the previous night were on the ground riddled with beak holes. Buns, chips, bottles, packaging for the meat were strewn all over our camp area. That bird ate, four hamburgers, three hotdogs, like eight slices of pepper-jack cheese, a bunch of buns and some chips. As much as I don’t like birds (aka rats with wings), I certainly hope that creature is OK. That pepper jack cheese could NOT have been good for him…eeeek.. I would hate to be walking along minding my own business while he was flying over head when that cheese kicked in!! WOOOO

Pretty much as soon as I finished cleaning up the birds party mess up..everyone woke up and we all started packing up to head down the mountain.

But first! We had to stop at the Watch Tower:

We climbed up and up and up and up, I have no idea how many flights of stairs but it felt like it was never ending. Totally worth it..the view was amazing and the inside with the drawings (not sure if they are original or if they were drawn on as an added effect) were super neat as well. Gahhh…another missed photo opportunity.. when we reached the top there was yet another flight of stairs that was roped off with a really tempting note that said something along the lines of: “Do not climb these stairs that lead to the top of the tower”.. haha surprisingly, as much as we all wanted to, we did not disobey their request. 🙂

Thoroughly at peace and happy with our intake of the Grand Canyon, we strolled on over to the trading post for a quick bite and a to-go of java. Both of which were completely sub par..the best part of the teeny burrito Jason and I shared was the jalapeño hot sauce we doused it in and I’m pretty sure the coffee was Folgers..made with too much water and not enough grounds.. By the way..normally Jason and I don’t share plates but we wanted to save our appetites for lunch at the famous Rock Springs Cafe on the way home.

With some fuel in our bellies we were ready to roll!

Jason brilliantly suggested we take the back route and hit Slide Rock on our way home. Taking the scenic 89A route from Flagstaff to Slide Rock is a MUST. The geological transformation from the forests of Flagstaff into the red rocks of Sedona is an amazing display of Mother Natures pure awesomeness. Breath it, live it, feel it and go hug a tree! 😉

The last time I went to Slide Rock, parking was along the one lane two way highway..dangerous and it was pretty hard to come by a spot!

Since then, a parking lot has been built and now for a small fee of 10.00 you can park and have great fun at the park until they close if you like.

A little walk

A little hike

And just a little further is a peaceful oasis that in the summer time might be the perfect swimming hole!

Unless your Jason..it’s perfect now!! NUTBALL! That water was like 50 Fahrenheit!!

Going in for round two!

Sandro was VERY much tossing around the idea of free falling

While Carmen and I sat back and watched the show 🙂

I can’t even imagine how PACKED this place must be in the dead of summer?? Shoes and jackets came off as the heat set in a bit so we could put our toes in the water to cool off. Jason won the badge of bravery for the day! 🙂

No doubt we could have all spent the night in that very spot but with lunch to eat, showers to take and friends to meet..We had to go.

We pit stopped at the famous Rock Springs Cafe for lunch and pie, sped home (as safely as possible of course), showered, rested and readied ourselves for guests! ** Click on Rock Springs Cafe..this little place deserves a blog all its own. Super friendly people, excellent food, out of this world pies and old saloon type decor. My subliminal message to you is…You must go !! **

No pictures from here on out because by lunch time Kristi Kodak was closed for business. 🙂 Trust me when I tell you we had more great food, great drinks and great friends! We didn’t over do it because the next day ..there were plans of more shenanigans!

Happy New Year!

And Down the Mountain We Went…