5 Dec 05      De Anza CA to Sedona AZ         450 miles

After spending the night at DeAnza we got an early start driving to Sedona since we knew it was a long drive. It was uneventful, we stopped in El Centro for breakfast at IHOP, then in Phoenix at the Toyota dealer to buy a new air filter for the car, John had no luck in buying one in San Diego before we left.

We drove on to Sedona and checked in at Los Abrigados and got settled in our timeshare. The weather was brisk, and downright cold at night, temperatures dropping to the 20’s most nights.

We were both tired from the long day in the car, we had supper and stayed in the unit until bedtime, getting settled.

The unit was OK, very strangely laid out in the living/dining room, and instead of a full kitchen it had a kitchenette, which consisted of a microwave, coffee pot, toaster broiler and bar sink. Not much to cook on, hardly any dishes and no pots or pans without a means to use them.

6 Dec 05      Sedona      Tlaquepaque

We decided today was too cold and windy to go hiking, but there was enough to do around Los Abrigados, especially since we had the ‘owner’s update’ meeting to attend in the morning. It is just another sales pitch, encouraging us to upgrade to a two bedroom, which we didn’t. This timeshare is expensive enough!

After the meeting, we walked around Los Abrigados to orient ourselves, then walked over to Tlaquepaque, the expensive shopping area adjacent to Los Abrigados. There are quite a few galleries located in the area, as well as shops and restaurants. We went back to the room for lunch, since we had plans to eat at one of the restaurants at Los Abrigados that evening, we had 60 dollars in ‘scrip’ that was good for either the spa shop or restaurants within the complex.

We made reservations at Joey's Bistro, but this was their ‘all you can eat pasta’ night, so we weren’t able to get in until 7 PM, a bit late for our dinner. The food was excellent, we each had a pasta dish with good bread and a different antipasto salad to begin with.

It was an enjoyable evening, of course we ate too much, and I brought a bit of my pasta back to the room for leftovers tomorrow.

7 Dec 05   Sedona - Red Rock State Park

We decided to tour the area today and take a hike, so we picked up a forest service guide and decided to go to Red Rock State Park. There is a loop road off 89A south, so we headed in that direction. A ‘Red Rock Pass’ is required to park at the trailheads, we bought a weekly one at Los Abrigados, then discovered we could have used our Golden Eagle Passports instead! Live and learn, why didn’t the man we bought the weekly pass from mention it to us?

The road was scenic in itself, we stopped at the State Park, paid our fee and drove to the visitor center. After an interesting tour of it, we were ready to hike. There were several trails to hike, we chose one across the the field and up into the hills a bit.

It was very interesting, we crossed Oak Creek, saw a solar toilet, then took the trail to the ‘House of Apache Fire’, which is up on a hill. The trail goes all the way around to the back side of the hill, and since we needed the exercise we took the long way around. It was quite scenic, and the story of the house built by Jack and Helen Frye was on a sign board so John took a picture of it. The house is closed off by a chain link fence all around, but we did manage to take several pictures of it through the fence. They lived here for a time, but the house is abandoned and had been damaged inside by vandals.

We rested a bit, then started down the trail back to the Visitor Center. We drove the remainder of the loop road back to 89A, part of which was dirt and washboard!

Back at Los Abrigados, we waited until dark and then walked around the complex taking pictures of the Christmas displays. It was cold, but the lights were just beautiful, and I especially like the ‘dancing tree’s’. John took movies on his camera of some of the displays, but without the tripod.

8 Dec 05   Sedona   Tlaquepaque

We decided again to remain close to the timeshare area and take another hike tomorrow. John went off to find a ‘wi-fi’ connection, which he did, and read his e-mail.

We walked back to Tlaquepaque to visit the shops we had missed last time, and had lunch at a lovely restaurant, ‘Rene’s’. Our food was delicious and service excellent.

We strolled through most of the shops and galleries, there are some lovely works of art, all types, glass, brass, wood, paintings, you name it and it’s available.

9 Dec 05   ;Sedona   Bell Rock and town

We drove to ‘upper Sedona’ in the morning and walked around some of the shops, John bought me a pair of Kokepelli earrings.

We had a bite of lunch at a not so good restaurant, it was family style, but the food was rather tasteless.

Afterwards we drove toward Oak Creek to take the Bell Rock Hike, I had wanted to do this while here, John had been here hiking before.

We parked across the road and hiked a ways to the trail, we decided not to take the longer one around Courthouse rock, it was several miles.

So, we climbed the trail up Bell Rock and had spectacular views. We only made it about half way up the rock, there are no well defined trails, and some sort of mountain goat hiking was required when we got to a certain point. We were able to take great pictures from our hike, and were quite tired when we arrived back at the car.

Again, after dark, John walked around Los Abrigados and took pictures, this time with his tripod. They came out very nice.

We had dinner at another of the restaurants at Los Abrigados, I had pizza that was delicious.

10 Dec   Sedona Dry Creek Trail, Boynton Canyon trail & Soldiers Pass

We were off on another day of driving to find a hiking area, first we stopped in town and had a brunch at the Coffee Pot restaurant, it seemed to be the most popular in town! The Denny’s was closed, as was another locally owned one we were going to stop in.

We left the restaurant and drove down Dry Creek Road, which comes to a dead end and splits into Boynton Canyon and Long Canyon Roads.

We first drove down Long Canyon, turning around at the end, which is a huge resort. We did stop at one area to hike, but the hike went into a canyon and didn’t look particularly interesting. We drove further on the road and found a large parking area with hiking in several directions, so we parked and started off toward Boynton Spire. It was quite a hike, very steep at the end, but we were halfway up the spire and could look down on part of the resort and had views to Boynton Canyon and red rocks in the distance. The weather was lovely, we were quite warm hiking.

While sitting at the top of the trail on Boynton’s Spire, we saw several people below us just off the main trail. They were scattering ashes, hugging one another and laying rocks in a way that one would to mark the spot. Interesting.

We started back towards the car and then drove back towards Sedona, stopping to take pictures from a high point on the road. Scenery was great from this road.

Getting back to town, I took a wrong turn and we wound up at Soldiers Pass. We parked, but the hike to the pass was through a wash with very steep and loose soil sides, we decided not to go on it, since we had already hiked a couple of hours previously and it was beginning to get toward late afternoon.

All in all, it was a good day, wonderful scenery and great hiking areas!

11 Dec 05    Sedona    Tlaquepaque and uptown Sedona

We stayed close to our timeshare this Sunday, our last day here. We went back to Tlaquepaque and had lunch at Rene’s again, and once more we had wonderful food.

We visited a couple more shops and then drove uptown so I could find a fridge magnet for Laura, I had seen it before and decided later to buy it for her. I had a difficult time finding the shop again, but persisted until I did. We took a couple pictures of the bronze statue of the artist and little girl filming him, which is a really cute statue.

Also walked through some tourist gift shops while there, then back to the timeshare.

After dark we walked a long while around Los Abrigados to get all the pictures we wanted from the displays. I don’t think we will be staying in the timeshare here for a few years.

12 Dec   Sedona to home      450 miles

We had an uneventful drive home, stopping in Phoenix to find a Cracker Barrel restaurant for a late breakfast, much to John’s chagrin. We had a bit of difficulty finding it, but did, and I bought a few gifts of their food, fried apples and apple pancake mix, for Mike’s Xmas presents.

We stopped at Highline South hot springs on the way home, John got in the water, I didn’t, and we both chatted with the people staying there.

We decided not to spend the night at DeAnza, we were both tired of being away from home and so drove on to our house.