Sedona, AZ

We woke up Monday morning with a view of three rock formations in Sedona, the middle one being Bell Rock.  It was a pretty view!

After a breakfast of pastries at a coffee shop, we headed to do a short hike.  Since the town was predicted to be super busy, taking a free shuttle was recommended.  We drove to one of the shuttle spots and figured out we were near Soldier's Pass Trail.  So that is the one we decided to hike.  After walking through a neighborhood, we got to the trailhead and began the hike to the 7 Sacred Pools.  It wasn't very far, about half a mile, but far enough for us.  

The sinkhole on the way to the pools

Only five of the Sacred Pools had water in them, and the water looked a lot different than the pictures online!

After our short hike, we went shopping at Tlaqupaque.  This was a recreated Mexican village that was full of cool stores and restaurants.  We were able to find some neat things to buy and then found a really good Mexican restaurant El Rincon.  The spinach queso was really good!  The only bad thing was we were too full to be able to order the sopapillas for dessert!

Because it was recommended, we went to uptown Sedona after Tlaquepaque.  This was definitely not our favorite spot.  It was so crowded and hot and the stores sold mainly cheap souvenirs.  The one good thing was that we were able to ask about and see Snoopy Rock.  Once you see it, it is so obvious.  But we had to have someone show it to us.

Snoopy is the small rock formation on the right.  It is him sleeping on his doghouse.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Chapel of the Holy Cross.  It was a really pretty chapel.  Being Catholic, they had candles you could light for prayers, and you could feel the heat of all the candles as you walked in the chapel.

 

We had another good meal at Colt Grill followed by milkshakes at Rocky Ice Cream before we headed to the airport mesa for sunset.

After being super crowded all day because it was Memorial Day, we ended up being almost the only people at the hotel that night.  Guess everyone had headed home.  Just like we did on Tuesday.  We didn't have to leave too early, but we did have to be in Phoenix, 2 hours away, by 10:30.  On the drive, we were all getting texts about delayed flights.  Mine ended up being cancelled and rebooked at 5:00 that evening.  I was able to get it rebooked and ended up home around 1:00 in the morning.  Jenn and Ashton ended up on their flight to Dallas, but then stuck there.  They finally got a flight out of there, but also very late.  Until this day, due to super bad weather in Dallas, everything had run smoothly.  Getting home was definitely stressful, but much better than being stressful trying to get to Arizona.  

It was such a fun trip!  Very tiring, but full of great memories.  I am so glad I got to spend time with my sister and niece!  It was a trip that we will never forget!  Now to figure out where we want to hike next year!!

Bryce Canyon

Sunday was our Bryce Canyon day.  It had been an out of the way drive, like everything up there when a canyon is involved, but because of Vacation Races pictures, I had really wanted to see the hoodoos at Bryce.  And they were spectacular!  Bryce is not a huge park, and if you only do the short hike, you can see it all in one day.  Of course, you could also camp there and rent bikes and hike longer trails and have more fun.  But we had our one day and we made the most of it.

Breakfast was at the hotel.  Well, we took it to go back to our cabin as it was super crowded in the breakfast room.  We got to the canyon around 9ish and found a parking spot at the visitor's center.  We got there in time as a few hours later they were no longer allowing cars into the park.  From the visitor's center we got on the shuttle that took us around the loop for some of the overlooks.  

At one of the shuttle stops, we started our hike of the day.  It was named the Queen's Garden and Navajo Trail Loop.  We hiked down into the canyon less than a mile to the Queen's Garden, then a little way across the canyon and back up the Navajo Trail, specifically the Wall Street section.  All in all, it was a little less than 4 miles. 

  

 

Queen Victoria hoodoo

A picture of Queen Victoria that shows how the hoodoo looks like her

Jenn learning how to pose!

There were lots of trees in the desert of a canyon, especially in the bottom.  It was really pretty.  To climb out, we walked up Wall Street, which was kind of steep and long.  But nothing compared to what we had already completed, so we were good!  It reminded us of an Indiana Jones Movie!  

More posing!

After we finished hiking, we took the shuttle back to our car so that we could do the 18-mile scenic drive.  More overlooks and hoodoos and a natural bridge.

Thor's Hammer

Natural Bridge

After finishing Bryce, we had to drive to Sedona, AZ.  We would drive through 4 time changes!  It was about a 5.5-hour drive.  This was our longest drive, and we were all getting tired.  We made a dinner stop at Stromboli's in Page for pasta and pizza.  After having had two pizza dinners that were not the best, we were glad for a salad and good pizza!

We arrived in Sedona around 8:30. I had made hotel reservations almost a year in advance, but the hotel had changed owners and lost our reservation.  And they had no more rooms.  I was super tired and getting a little anxious about our evening sleeping plans.  Being Memorial Day weekend, it was super crowded, and the desk clerk wasn't too optimistic about finding another place.  But he did find us one and according to him, it was a nicer place.  The desk clerk there was super nice and assured us that we would have a great view in the morning.  We got in our room and crashed while looking forward to our good view in the morning!