Pics: 1) Tucson desert, 2) at the Tucson Desert museum, 3) Sedona red rocks, 4) with the girls and the red rocks, 5) under the Sedona bridge, water far below, 6) with our host Daniel at the Grand Canyon, 7) at our special spot in the canyon, looking out over the vastness, 8) view from "the chair", 9) sunset on my face, 10) sunset behind the mesa
The Arabic place for dinner in Tucson was really good - especially since I got a Greek gyro. Lol After that we rented “My Cousin Vinny” since I’d so amused everyone with my Marisa Tomei impression of the deer hunting scene in the movie. Theresa and Enrique really enjoyed the movie that night, but of course Carmen (aka - the cat) fell asleep half way though. I’m constantly blown away by how much she sleeps. I thought I slept a lot! Lol
The next morning we left the house at the same time as Rich. He went to work and we drove to the Tucson desert museum which was actually like a zoo and nursery of desert animals and plants. It was really neat - we saw havalinas (desert pigs), prairie dogs, mountain lions, black bears, wolves, raccoons, bobcats, humming birds, reptiles, and many desert plants including saguaro cacti.
It was a pretty cool place, but, being I the middle of the desert, quite hot. We also stopped by the outside of Old Tucson where all the Western movies are filmed (usually by Disney) but unfortunately it was $17 pp to get in, so we just took pics of the front and left. Then
we drove through the Saguaro National Park on our way to Sedona. We decided not to go to Phoenix because Rich said that it was just a big, hot city with too many people. He said going to Flagstaff by way of Sedona would be much prettier.
As we got closer to Sedona the landscape started to change and red rock mountains rose out of the ground, trees suddenly appeared, and the temperatures dropped. We got out at one scenic overlook and I climbed up this big red plateau which looked all over the red rock country. It was so breathtaking. The temps were only in the 70s and the air felt wonderful. Enrique was shocked at how much the landscape had changed from desert and cacti to mountains and pines, from 90s to 70s in just a matter of a couple hours.
From there we went to the tourist info point in Sedona and the girl there was really sweet. She was so excited to hear about our trip and gave me all her info so we can be face book and CS friends. She said anytime I want to come back to Sedona, I have a place on her couch. She told us to go to this “airport” overlook that looked out over
Sedona and the red rock country, as well as to another little pull-off where we could see the underside of this big bridge and see the river hundreds of feet below.
We did both, as she suggested, and they were both breathtaking. The woman at the airport overlook who gives information to tourists started talking to us and was SO excited about the idea of couch surfing. She was probably in her 40s or 50s, but so energetic and excited it was almost comical. She wished us the best of luck, and we moved on.
US-179 is the scenic highway that goes from Sedona to Flagstaff and it was quite a beautiful drive. The higher we got, the more dense the trees and the more curvy the roads got. It was overcast and the temps were dropping more, and it somehow reminded me of what I believe Forks, Washington will look like. Who knew that northern AZ could looks so lush and actually get rain?? Well, it is monsoon season after all. Millions of years ago, Sedona used to be the bottom of the ocean, and Flagstaff was the beach - and given Flagstaff’s elevation, I can believe that. We stopped at an overlook on the way to get pics of the height and the beautiful pink sunset.
We met our host Daniel at his house in Flagstaff. He had two very sweet dogs named Opey and Daisy. Sadly, Opey is dying from lymphoma, the news of which Daniel had just gotten that day.
It was sad because we all grew to love that dog very much. Daniel had a nice little House and we all had places to sleep and fresh linens. He even let us do laundry there. That night, he took us to downtown Flagstaff which was so quaint and sweet. I really liked it a great deal. Enrique, Carmen and I ate at a Greek restaurant called “Greek Isles” while Theresa went with Daniel who was practicing music with his band partner in an old brothel that once covered as a hotel.
The owner of the Greek restaurant was from Crete (a Greek isle) and I talked excitedly to him about Greece. The waiter boy was new and looked so much like Robert Pattinson that it was uncanny. He was a sophomore at the university as a theater major. When I asked if he had heard that he looked like Robert before he was like “ohh no, not again. Everyone says that.”
I said, “well, you should be flattered, women love him.” And he said, “yeah, 12 yr olds and 40 somethings.” I had to laugh at that. When we fished (I had a gyro for the 2nd night in a row), we met Daniel and Theresa at the old brothel. I was tired so Daniel took me back to the house so I could go to bed, and the rest of them stayed out until 2 while Daniel rehearsed.
The next day we took Daniel and the dogs with us to the Grand Canyon. It was only about an hour drive through beautiful scenery. We listened to the Eagles and sung along the whole way.
Once at the Grand Canyon we went to several different overlooks. I was so amazed. It was not a disappointment as some people said it would be after so much build up. It was absolutely
fascinating.
As we walked around the overlooks on the rim, the dogs were fascinated by the squirrels which were everywhere and they were making everyone laugh, lunging at them, despite their leashes. Then this awful woman said "That's not funny. Dogs disturb the wildlife, that's why they aren't actually allowed out of the parking lot." We were all taken aback. How high-and-mighty she thought she was. Daniel was shocked because 1) everyone likes his dogs and 2) he'd never heard that rule before, but she sounded so sure. So later we asked a ranger, and in fact, dogs are allowed at the rim, just not on the trails. Plus, I think the humans feeding the squirrels Cheetos were doing more harm than Opey and Daisy. Also, a squirrel ate sunflower seeds out of Carmen's hand. Very adorable. But at least sunflower seeds are natural.
Daniel took us to this one overlook where you can kind of hike out to this rock formation that looks kind of like a big chimney. From there, the view over the canyon was pretty out of this world. Daniel calls this one spot “the seat” because you can sit on the rocks and dangle your feet over the edge of the canyon but not feel unsafe because the “seat” leaned back away from the edge. It’s sort of hard to explain, but nonetheless, it was really cool. Theresa and Carmen stayed behind on the main overlook area as they were scared, even though it wasn’t really very dangerous. We all ate lunch at that stop (even though it was 5 pm) then we went over to Desert View overlook to see the sunset. It was soo beautiful, even though there were some low-laying clouds that prevented the full effect of a Grand Canyon sunset, it was still colorful and lovely.
As soon as the sun started setting it got quite chilly and the wind picked up dramatically. It had been nice all day - in the low 80s - but now it at that point it got downright cold. We walked back to the car covered in goose bumps. As we drove back, we decided to stop at the Indian Reservation Lodge for dinner. Driving there was a bit scary because the wind was gusting so hard that with all of us in the car and the roof carrier on top, I felt like the car was being randomly punched every few minutes from a giant. After we ate at the lodge however, the wind had died down and the rest of the drive back to Flagstaff was uneventful.
We sang a lot of 80s songs this time.
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