Arizona Adventure: Phase 2 - Sedona

Day 3 -

We LOVE LOVE LOVE Sedona!!

Day 3, Monday, we slept in as long as the kids would allow us, then packed up and headed for Sedona. On the way out of town, we stopped at a Safeway to grab some drinks and snacks for the car ride, and of course they had a CLAW MACHINE. Not wanting to spend much time or money on this, we gave Jack and Noah each $.50 for ONE turn. I don't know why we are even surprised by this, but of course, Jack got one. Can you stand it? He danced all over Safeway. At least he still appreciates his winnings thoroughly!

Anyway, the drive to Sedona was awesome - I love new and different road trips in areas of the country with interesting landscapes. Very hilly - almost mountainous - but instead of the hills being covered with pine trees, they are covered in cactuses, both big and small (or cacti? Still haven't cleared that up.). It was a very cool drive. Enroute, we stopped at the Montezuma Castle National Monument - a former Indian Cliff dwelling . . . We arrived here around lunch - and oh my goodness, we fell in love with this place immediately upon arrival. It's SPECTACULAR - simply amazing, amazing views of all these massive red rock formations and mountains. I've always said that if I ever bought a second home (ha ha) it would be in Jackson Hole - now I would seriously rethink that. Jackson Hole has some tough competition here! Anyway, we managed to check in early (UNHEARD of around here) . . .

. . . and then proceeded straight to McDonalds for our starving children (notice the blue/green arches? Hmm?). Then we were able to drive around a little and take in the scenery. The evening was spent at the pool - very relaxing. We're learning that if the kids are allowed enough time at the pool, they're pretty good about everything mom and dad want to do!

Day 4 -

The Pink Jeep Tour

Okay this was a MAJOR highlight of the trip - jeep tours are enormously popular around here, and supposedly the Pink Jeep company is the best, so off we went at 7:00 a.m. this morning (in order to beat the heat). Here's how Jack felt about getting up at 6:00 a.m.:

At first Jack and Noah were like - "What?!?! You want us to ride in a PINK jeep??" - which was so funny, because little did they know they were in for the ride of their lives. A few minutes into the trip, Noah said "This doesn't seem like a pink jeep tour, this is a CRAZY jeep tour!" There really aren't words to describe this adventure - it was definitely a wild ride up into the rocks. Their ads say "Not for the faint of heart" - NO joke. We'd encounter some enormous rock formation and I would think "okay, now where do we go?" or "he's not really going to attempt that . . ." and our driver would plow straight through (and over) areas I never thought vehicles could maneuver. Jack and Noah hooted, hollered and laughed the whole way - it was just a great experience. And of course we stopped at some great viewpoints and got some good pictures too!

Here's the kind of stuff we were driving over (this is the jeep behind ours) . . .

This picture shows the city of Sedona - down in the lower left part of the picture:

This is a completely un-posed picture of Jack (we're headed down some crazy hill) - totally candid, I swear . . .
Then we headed back for some pool time and then naps after lunch . . .

This afternoon, we headed out for some exploring - drove through a gated community to check out some of the houses here, and visited a chapel called Chapel of the Holy Cross - a chapel that's basically built into a rock formation. You climb up a hill to get to it, and the views were amazing.

When Jack and Noah had enough picture-taking, we went out for supper - and lucky Mark, he found his ultimate appetizer - "Wicked Pickles." Care to guess? They are battered, deep-fried pickles. Yep, he loved them, obviously.

This is the "shopping" area where the restaurant was . . . BEAUTIFUL. I use the term "shopping" loosely, though, because the only shopping being done here was by people who earn $5 million plus per year. Most of us were there just eating and taking pictures!
I would LOVE this cross for my collection . . . .

Now it's 8:00 p.m. here and the kids are already in bed - they were wiped out, and I'm going to follow soon! Tomorrow we'll make another early-morning visit to the pool, then it's off to the Grand Canyon . . . . .