Sedona

March 24-25 Forest Service Land - 10 miles south of Sedona - no services, $0 Out trip from Empire Landing to Sedona took about 2 hours longer than it should have due to my poor navigation skills. We ended up driving north to from Flagstaff and then south to Sedona instead of north from Cottonwood. This also meant we crossed the Arizona Divide at about 7300 feet and saw a 12,000 ft mountain with snow on it. We left the desert environment and have now seen lots of Ponderosa Pines. The narrow, winding Oak Creek Canyon road to Sedona was challenging driving for Daryl pulling the 5th wheel but offered some spectacular scenery down the red sandstone canyon. Sedona itself looks pretty, pretty touristy and very busy. We missed two campgrounds north of town, due to last minute signs and too much traffic behind us to go slow. So Plan B - dispersed camping on Forest Service land 10 miles south of town has worked out well. We can see 2 other campers a little ways away. We have a lovely view all around us and we can see some of the red rock formations in the area. Now that we're up about 5000 ft. it's cooler, about 24C at 5 PM, instead of 30C. We have privacy and the dogs can be off-leash (a bit). Just like at Kelso Dunes, other campers haven't seen fit to bury their feces and Daegan's nose leads him right to it and much to our disgust, he eats it. So, he has on a collar with a bear bell so we know when he's moving out of our sight. Last night Daryl was sitting out reading by headlamp after dark. Daegan was out with him. Daryl came in to go to bed and didn't realize Daegan was still out lying down. Around 11 PM I heard a few quiet wuufs outside- thought it sounded like Deagan, which was puzzling because both dogs sleep inside. I heard the dog again and decided to make sure both dogs were inside. Much to my surprise, only Keeva was there and when I opened the door, there was Deagan.! We put up an X-pen (like a fence) so he wasn't loose, but he was pretty happy to come in. Another Daegan story -- we had the dogs inside because they had been barking at other dogs and we were outside sitting in our chairs. The screen door has a latch to open it and there is also a cover on the inside that covers up the latch so the door can't be opened. We always close the oover because Daegan knows how to push the latch to open the door. Well, we watched him use his nose to gradually push to cover over first and then push the latch to get the door open. Took him about 30 seconds. He is a smart dog. We took in the sights today and WOW, was there a lot of spectacular scenery!!! The red rock formations are amazing and, if I were very rich, Sedona is a place I'd have a home - it is so beautiful.

It's spring here, daffodils, lilacs and iris are in bloom and many trees have the bright green colour of new leaves. This is an area of "vortexes" places where there the Earth's power is said to be strongly felt and believed to be a very spiritual centre. Sedona is the place to come to have your aura read; energy rebalanced; participate in spiritual yoga or go on groovy jeep tours with a metaphysical bent. Daryl wasn't into it. We drove through a subdivision of beautiful south-west style architecture on the way to see the Chapel of the Holy Cross. It was built in 1956 by Marguerite Brunwig Staude in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright. The foundation is built into red rock columns., quite stunning and great views of Sedona. Then we drove the airport road thinking we might go see a vortex. The parking lot was packed so we continued on to a viewpoint near the airport and overlooked Sedona. The small airport is built on a plateau hundreds of feet above Sedona and I would imagine would feel weird landing a plane on the runway. Had a fellow camper over for dinner last night. Really interesting man who was a professional ballet dancer. We checked the weather forecast for the Grand Canyon and to our disappointment, a cold front is moving in and low temps are going below 0C. Rain and snow are forecast. So, that means we are got going to see the Grand Canyon this trip. Tomorrow we will start west and north towards Las Vegas and then home. Must admit I'm ready and the dark clouds are arriving, but no rain yet.