It's been on my bucket list to visit the Grand Canyon for a very long time and the past few years to visit Sedona! This week I was able to see and enjoy both of these amazing places!!
Wednesday 4/16
We got up this morning at 3:30am(!!!!) and were at the airport by 4:45am. It's so nice living so close to a small airport! Our flight was uneventful, we had an hour layover in Dallas, and then finally landed in Phoenix. We picked up our rental car and ate lunch downtown at Matt's Big Breakfast before starting the drive to Sedona. What an amazing drive! Such vast landscape changes - from the big tall cactuses, to fields, to red rocks! We made a stop at Chapel of the Holy Cross and it was pretty crowded! M dropped us out along the side of the road so that we could get pictures and then picked us up on his way back around! C had a goal to touch a cactus - he succeeded! LOL! We next stopped at Tlaquepague Arts Village. We walked around and looked at all the cute shops and of course got some pictures! On the way to our Airbnb we stopped at the grocery to stock up for a few days. The place we were staying blew us away! It was so nice with the BEST views! And so convenient to all things Sedona! We showered and relaxed a bit and then headed back to Tlaquepague for more pictures while we were dressed up before finally going to dinner at The Hudson. This restaurant had great views of the sun setting over the red rocks! It was a great place to end our first day in Arizona!
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| View from the living room at our Airbnb |
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| Back yard at our Airbnb made for a great picture setting! |
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| Restaurant views! |
Thursday 4/17
Our bodies were still on East Coast time, so we were up really early(plus the sun rises earlier than it does at home!). We were up by 5am and had breakfast at the house before going for about 4.5 mile hike around Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock and then up Bell Rock. Sooooo beautiful! It was not a hard hike, but it was definitely a worthwhile hike. It took us about two hours and then we needed to refuel before our next adventure and stopped in for smoothies at Wildcraft Kitchen. This was quite possibly the best smoothie I've had in my life! I would have gone every day if we'd had time! Next up was a Pink Jeep Tour. We opted for the Broken Arrow Tour and it was something! It was a bumpy, bumpy ride with our crazy guide! But, oh, so much fun! We got great pictures and had lots of laughs! Because of the snow forecasted for tomorrow and everyone on our tour telling us the roads to the Grand Canyon are scary, we decided to grab some quick burgers for lunch at Outlaw Burgers and make the drive to the Grand Canyon for the afternoon(this ended up being a great decision because it did indeed snow on Friday and S got sick!). The South Rim East Entrance near Cameron is less crowded than the West Entrance(per our jeep guide and he was accurate!) so this is the way we decided to go! We made a couple of stops once inside the park(it's a HUGE park where you are driving on roads that aren't even near the canyon which surprised me!) and wow what an incredible thing to see! We walked out to Mather Point and along the Rim Trail. C really wanted to hike down a ways into the canyon and we had originally planned to do that when we were going to spend an entire day at the Grand Canyon, but because of the way the weather worked out and we only had a limited time to visit there, we were not able to hike down! Maybe if we get the opportunity to go back again we can do that because I would like to do that as well! We left the Grand Canyon and drove back to Sedona stopping in Williams, AZ(one of the towns the movie Cars is based off of) and ate dinner at Cruisers Cafe. We then drove back to Sedona. Whew! An 8 hour round-trip to the Grand Canyon. I'm so glad we were able to see it!!
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| Sunrise at 5:45am at the house! So pretty! |
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| Beginning our hike around Courthouse Butte |
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| Bell Rock views |
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| YUM! And much needed after our morning hike! |
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| Jeep Tour views |
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| Elk along the roadside was we were leaving Grand Canyon |
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The men's bathroom at Cruisers! The women's
bathroom was really neat too! |
Friday 4/18
On the way home from the Grand Canyon last night, S started feeling sick. Yup, she caught something because she woke up feeling terrible this morning. The weather hadn't quite made a turn for the worse yet so M, C and I decided to get a morning hike in! We left S at the house with meds and snacks and made the short drive to hike Devils Bridge. It was 2.5 miles in, climbing up rocks and then at the top was the bridge! OH MY! I had no idea what this hike was, so it was a complete surprise when we were on a bridge extended over a canyon! We weren't sure about it at first, but in the end we made it out to the middle and got our picture! As soon as we started back down the trail it started raining and we were poured on for the entire 2.5 miles back to the car! We were a mess! Back at the house, we checked in on poor S(feeling extra crappy at this point!), ate lunch and cleaned ourselves up. We left S again and ventured out downtown Sedona to do some souvenir shopping in the rain! We were very successful, found S a sweatshirt too with the help of FaceTime, and then it started SNOWING! It was beautiful and kinda weird for Sedona in April! We made it back to the condo in time to cook dinner in and enjoy watching the snow from the inside with the fire going!
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| Snow covered red rocks! |
Saturday 4/19
We woke up to a gorgeous morning with clear skies. S was feeling slightly better but we let her rest for the morning while we went just up the street for a morning hike. We hiked Sugarloaf/Tea Cup Trail. It was an easy hike to the summit with a view over West Sedona. We went back to the house and picked up S. We made a quick stop at Airport Mesa Overlook(although we decided it was a better view from our hike this morning) and then drove about 30 minutes to Clarkdale, AZ to ride the Verde Railroad through the canyons. We had lunch at the depot(it left a lot to be desired) and then boarded the train for a four hour ride! It was a slow, gentle ride with super comfy seats! We learned a little, saw a lot, and it was a good way to spend our last day in Arizona. For dinner we went to Elote and watched the sun set on the mountains as we finished dinner. S was still not 100% today, but we were soooo glad she felt well enough to participate in all the activities today!
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| Still a little snow on the mountains |
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Our Airbnb was down there somewhere! We
never could find it exactly! |
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The agave plants were starting to shoot up!
I'm not a big plant person, but this is such a neat
one that I took probably ten pictures of them
over the course of the trip! |
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| We got S! Airport Mesa Overlook |
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| Red-tailed hawk |
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Watching the river below us! The boy LOVES
all things having to do with fishing! |
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| Dinner at Elote |
Sunday 4/20
We'd wanted to get up and do an Easter Sunrise service this morning(how pretty would that have been over the red rocks??), but we didn't want to push S too hard too fast. So, we packed up the house, got on the road, and made a couple of stops along the way to the airport to take pictures with the tall kind of cactus(these kind only grew closer to Phoenix, not in Sedona). Our flights on the way home were not crazy, we made our connecting flight in Charlotte and finally back to South Carolina!
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| Morning hot air balloons from our house |
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Such a beautiful part of the country - this is
a rest area about half way between Sedona
and Phoenix. The terrain is so different! |
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| We had to get pictures with these large cacti! |
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| They are EVERYWHERE as you get close to Phoenix! |
I absolutely loved Arizona and getting to see and experience all that we did! I could easily have spent another day or two there this vacation, but maybe I'll back again one day;)
