Sunday, April 3, 2011

Higher Ground, Flagstaff and Sedona…

We made our way to Williams, the Gateway to the Grand Canyon, via Route 66, stopping at the Frontier Motel and Café at Truxton for lunch.

Pictured below is the outside of the Frontier Café and the piece of banana Cream Pie I had to follow my potato soup. It may have been the whitest lunch I’ve ever had - dental work was still very sore.











One our drive, listening to the radio, we heard one of the more unique marketing proposals to date: “Buy a new Satellite System Now and get a Free Gun!

We got to the Canyon Gateway RV park about 3:00 and then took a walking tour of the town. The elevation here is over 5,000 feet and there are still patches of snow in the shade. The afternoon temperature though was in the eighties.

Pictured below is one of the many businesses trading off the Route 66 theme, which runs through the middle of town. Williams really is the gateway to the South Rim of The Canyon and a lot of old businesses reflect that history.










On Saturday we took a drive to Flagstaff and Sedona. Flagstaff is a very new age kind of town. I know Northern Arizona University is there but I’m not sure that accounts for all the funky, one-of-a-kind shops and general hippy-ish kind of atmosphere. We toured around on foot and liked it a lot. The elevation is 7,000 feet though, so quite a bit lower temperatures than down in the desert.

Pictured are a couple of shots of downtown Flagstaff.










We took the scenic drive, south, to Sedona and were awestruck by the fairytale landscape of towering red rocks, red sidewalks, red curbs, red-rock landscaping and a lot of red adobe structures that make up Sedona. Very picturesque.

We hiked the Bell Rock and Little Horse Trails and then drove around taking more photos.

Pictured are: Downtown Sedona, Janice hiking the Little Horse Trail and some more shots in and around Sedona.

























What a nice surprise it was, driving around a corner to get to the Little Horse Trail, when I looked up and spotted a famed architectural piece called The Holy Cross Chapel of Sedona. I'd seen it in art history and architectural books before but hadn't realized it was in Sedona. It was built in 1956.

Pictured is the Holy Cross Chapel.











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Rhelda corrected me once again on my botanical misnomers. The Laurel hedging from our spot in Neddles, pictured in the last blog, was actually Orleander - all of its parts are toxic.

We woke to gusty winds with sunny skies on Sunday morning and we’re headed for the Grand Canyon…

2 comments:

  1. You have just recently seen one of my favourite places....Sedona. I've always had nice, warm visits to the area and admire it as you did. I enjoyed the restaurants in the Tlaquepaque area and have some CD's from a street entertainer, Patrick Ki, playing beautiful classical guitar.
    Enjoy each day. The bulbs are breaking ground in The Loops. hugs, cuz

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  2. Hi you two,
    You sure cover a lot more territory in on day than a couple of seniors did.
    Glad to see you got a picture of Snoopy on his dog house with Nancy looking down. Part of the Little Horse Trail goes over to the Chapel or you can do a whole Loop.
    What did you have white for dinner Tim?
    Stay Safe
    XOXO
    Rhelda / Mom

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