Yoga ~ Travel ~ Joy: Land of Enchantment

This morning we left Prescott for Sedona, choosing to take the scenic route, which is route 89A from Prescott through Jerome and some other small towns and finally arriving at Sedona. 89A is a fun, curvy road through/over a small mountain range, then arriving at Jerome perched high on the mountains. We stopped for a walk through the small downtown of Jerome, but we had arrived too early and most of the cute little shops were closed. We did get to wander into a store that sold nothing but kaleidoscopes of all shapes, sizes, colors and materials. While inside, a very old woman wearing a neon pink "Jerome Womens' Prison" baseball cap started talking to me about how wild the old town used to be in the days of the gunslingers and brothels, noting "...and all the men carried six shooters!" We continued talking for a bit, then she seemed to start over her soundtrack about the town of old and repeated verbatim "...and all the men carried six shooters!" She repeated various sentences about the town two or three times like she had never said them to me before. :)

We left Jerome and drove down into the Verde Valley, and on to the beautiful red rocks of Sedona. We checked into our little motel close to Uptown Sedona, the touristy shopping area. The hotel owner gave us a lot of advice about hiking trails, scenic drives and viewpoints in the area and even let us borrow his Sedona hiking book and parking pass.

After unloading the car into our motel room, we had a quick sandwich at the Black Cow Cafe, then headed to the Devil's Bridge hiking trail. The forest road to get to the trail head was unpaved, but we decided to try it out with our Jeep. About a quarter of a mile into the trail, we parked the Jeep on the side of the road after bouncing it over rocks the size of large watermelons. We walked the remaining 3/4 mile to the trail head, and then started up Devil's Bridge trail, which was another mile walking uphill and climbing in places, but a pretty moderate hike overall.

Gavin and I on Devil's Bridge.

Sitting on the edge of the bridge.

Obligatory yoga photo. :)

Devil's Bridge is a geological arch made of the Sedona red sandstone. Looking at it from the side, it looks really slender, and I wasn't sure if I would have the courage to cross it. Walking onto it, it is much bigger up close and I crossed it and wandered around all over both sides of the bridge for Gavin to get various pictures. :)

After Devil's Bridge, we headed to the Red Rock Scenic Loop Road for a scenic drive with good views of Cathedral Rock. After stopping at the main scenic overlook, we drove to Red Rock Crossing for another hike/walk along Oak Creek with some more lovely views of Cathedral Rock, and Buddha's beach at the end of the trail. We had a "refreshing" (read COLD! :) ) swim in Oak Creek at Buddha's Beach, but it felt wonderful after the sweaty hike up to Devil's Bridge.

View of Cathedral Rock from the Red Rock Loop.

Cathedral Rock from the Oak Creek trail.

Cathedral Rock reflected in Oak Creek.

Next we headed up Airport Road to the top of a mesa for the best views yet over Sedona and the surrounding rock formations. We didn't stay to watch the sunset with all the other tourists; we were hungry after our two hikes and wanted to go to dinner! :)

View from Airport Mesa.

We found the ideal Sedona dinner restaurant in Lonely Planet: Shugrue's Hillside Restaurant. Shugrue's had an outdoor deck a bit above Sedona with amazing views of the red rocks as the sun set across from them. As we ate dinner, we got to see the changing colors of the rock formations at the sunlight shone on them from different angles. We had a delicious, though overpriced, dinner and I enjoyed their signature prickly pear margarita. We stayed until well after sunset.