We spent just enough time in the charming Sedona last week to make me wish we lived there. We started the morning in Phoenix and drove north to visit Montezuma Castle National Monument, or rather two of us did and the one with pneumonia and I drooped our way back to the car and drank juice and coughed until it was time to go. I got just enough of a look to be amazed, and realize any pictures I took made it look like a doll house in the rocks. Guy overheard a teenager lie to his sister that this was Montezuma’s summer home. *snort*
We drove on through Jerome (more on that coming soon) and finally made it to Sedona just in time to be crushed to realize The Red Planet Diner is no longer. We mourned the loss of Space Junk, the entree, then found a worthy replacement at MoonDog’s Pizza. Granted, we were starving, but I’m still pretty sure the pizza and ancho chicken sandwich and spaghetti were great. I wanted to ask the owner if he was Moondog, expecting some old hippie, and was grateful I didn’t….because we heard a pack of coyotes singing and chattering three times that night and I put it together. Aha. Moondogs are coyotes. See, here, we hear a couple coyotes do a low howl now and then, but the moondogs in Sedona have a LOT to say. Especially at the full moon.
Moonrise over Sedona
Even after a night filled with coyotes, snoring, and two coughing kids, we were sufficiently reenergized by breakfast at Nick’s to go on a short hike before the day heated up. We headed to Boynton Canyon in a designated Red Rock Secret Wilderness of the Coconino National Forest to hike the Vista trail for the supposed vortex at the end. We’ll take all the good mojo we can get for the Peanut. Perfect for us. Gorgeous and restorative, and only one of us needed a piggy-back ride back to the trail head. We’ll go back again and hike some more of those beautiful red rocks for sure.
After a roadside picnic, we piled back in the car for a drive along Oak Creek Canyon, a thirteen-mile stretch I remember well from the first time my husband and I drove it; I was pregnant and the curves and the dizzyingly close canyon walls were intense and nauseating. This was a much easier drive. We stopped at the canyon rim and got a chance to get out and look back….and promise to come back again soon. Thanks, Sedona!
Advertisements Share this:
