Sedona, Arizona

Sunday, September 14,2014

Sedona, I read, is not only a beautiful and serene place, but has long been known as a spiritual power center. This is because the power, that emanates from the vortexes (there are 4 here) produces some of the most remarkable energy on the planet. It is also the reason why such a large New Age community has sprung up in the Sedona area, bringing with it a variety of spiritual and alternative medicine practices. Past experience has made me  a huge believer in energy healing. 

I had heard that Sedona was fabulous from so many people, that I was dying to see it. Our neighbor goes there nearly every year.  In fact, they got married there!

 Our only problem was that we had become a little tired of hot rocks – red or not.  We both feel strongly that when you come to the point in a trip where the extraordinary no longer takes your breath away, it’s time to go home. 

I would have preferred to skip Sedona completely, and keep its mystery for another trip – a destination in itself, but Norm wanted to go – if only for a day or two especially since it was on the way.

It was truly beautiful, but very hot this time of year.  The 97 degree temperatures proved too hot to hike, and if we couldn’t do that, we couldn’t see staying.  Another time, if I were to return ( I hope I do ) I would take advantage of the many “Energy” happenings . Perhaps a spa treatment or two, get my “aura” read ( weird, but might be interesting ) and spend some time absorbing  some of that energy Sedona is famous for.

The view of Sedona from the highest point we could get to by air-conditioned car

So we drove around, scouted out the highest point reachable by the air conditioned car, and stumbled upon a fabulous health food store. I was slightly taken aback by how friendly these total strangers were!  One lady kept following me around the store, discussing one product or another!  She seemed harmless, but having spent most of my time in the Northeast, my suspicious nature wondered if she was a “stalker”.

The Chapel of the Holly Cross

Another place of interest that we decided to check out was the Chapel of the Holy Cross.  More than half a century after construction, the Chapel of the Holy Cross continues to be a place of wonder for all who come to see it. This landmark juts out of 2 red mounds on a spur of rock  over 200 feet above the ground.  In 1932, Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a sculptist, philanthropist, and devout Catholic,  was gazing at the newly constructed Empire State building, and saw a cross superimposed on it.  This gave her the inspiration to build a church for all denominations.  I hate to admit it, and I definitely regret it, but because the sun and heat was so intense, neither Norm nor I hiked up the hill to go inside to take in the magnificent view.  I certainly will if/when I return to this wonderful place. 

We had a lovely dinner at the Heartline Cafe 

Before we went to dinner at the highly recommended Heartline Café, we noticed that the sky promised a beautiful sunset. It was raining where we were, but to the west the clouds were broken up, which generally makes the most spectacular colors.

We jockeyed for a place to watch the sun set where we hoped would
be a nice, intimate place- high above the town. Unfortunately, I think
half the town was there with us! How funny!

We all enjoyed a lovely sunset 

 We raced up to the highest spot we had found earlier in the day to enjoy a nice, romantic, private sunset.  We soon realized “private” was out of the question!  Hordes of people parking in “no parking” zones, stopping in the middle of the road, and packing the huge parking lot were all jockeying for a position to photograph the setting sun. Is this Yellowstone? Obviously this place was not a secret, after all!!  And we thought we were so very clever!

I must mention that at the campground, the cicadas (grasshopper type insect) were absolutely deafening!  In fact, their “love song” is the loudest in the insect world!  It can reach 100 decibels, making the possibility of sitting outside impossible.  It was so strange the way the roar would come and go every couple of minutes.

Here in Sedona was one of the first places we could actual watch TV!  While flipping channels, it did not take long to realize we did not miss much.  There was just as much garbage on TV as we left behind.

 Have we really lowered ourselves to except Reality TV as a productive pastime?  How could we, as a society, have gone from spending a quiet evening reading one of the great classics, to being hypnotized by the idiotic foolishness of these TV shows? We sit transfixed  watching one commercial after another occasionally  broken up with the “ reality “ of Duck Dynasty, or some really homely kid named Honey Boo-Boo, and strangely enough, we had no desire to keep up with the Kardashians!

OH NO!  We were going to Tucson, then Nogales!  Good thing we finally got the local TV news!
After seeing the roads washed out a week prior, we were taking this very seriously!

One thing we did discover during our channel surfing, thank goodness, was that there was a hurricane headed directly for our next destination of Nogales, Arizona then up through Tucson!  There was a great concern for massive flooding all over central and southern Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas! After we saw what happened to the roads behind us a few days ago, we were more concerned than we might otherwise have been. We had gained a new respect for the ravages of a heavy rain!

The next day we left Sedona in a hurry to dodge the hurricane, but would definitely like to come back, stay at a lovely rental house or resort and stay awhile to soak up ( and hike ) all that this area has to offer.