Red Rock Country

We're back up to four passengers today since Sophie decided to ditch her NYC, New Year's Eve plans and flew in to Phoenix last night to spend a few more days with us in Arizona :-) This made packing our rental car an interesting but not insolvable problem. It's a good thing I'm married to a Maths teacher and the children are flexible!

Taine's early morning blood nose meant we got a good , early start to the day and we were on the road a little after 9am. It takes a while to get out of Phoenix but soon enough we were on the highway with desert scenery on either side. We made a pit stop to look at Montezuma's castle, an amazing series of houses built into the rock wall dating right back to 600AD. While Montezuma's is the best preserved of the multi storey dwellings , there is evidence of a whole vertical village in the cliff face along the creek. Amazing to think of people living in such a well organised society so long ago.

At the crossroads back to the highway we stopped at a roadside stall where a Navajo indian gentleman and his mum where making fry bread and selling jewelry. We bought one piece of fry bread out of interest, then 3 more out of appetite . It was delicious!

We reached our destination of Sedona not long after. I had read on Trip Advisor and Fodors about the beauty of the red rocks in this area but once again, seeing is believing and for about the millionth time during this journey, we were gob smacked. This cluster of huge, red monoliths rise up from the desert floor in a variety of shapes and sizes, lending themselves to names like Bell Rock, Pyramid Rock and Snoopy Rock. The place is also full of psychics and spiritual healers and new age book stores because of the number of vortexes (and I have checked that this is the correct plural spelling!) that supposedly exist within the rocks. The vortexes are places where the energy is right for meditation, prayer and healing. My family are skeptical but I intend to open my mind to finding a vortex tomorrow!

The rocks themselves are certainly magical to look at. As with so many of our experiences on this trip, they are simply breath taking. Each day we talk about our favourite scenes, places, adventures and each day we have to add something else to the list. The red rocks of Sedona are certainly right up there.