Sedona, AZ. Like, you know, wow.
Quite frankly, Sedona is a spectacularly gorgeous place. One is surrounded by truly striking vistas, colossal rock formations in all manner of mystical earthy hues, interesting vegetation and groovy wildlife, all the while being held in the sunny womb of its balmy, dare I say near-perfect weather. It's really something.
One is similarly surrounded by a seeming perma-mob of tourists in a mad rush to consume the place like so much organic artisanal craft cheese. Getting many places unfortunately involves braving the bumper-to-bumper traffic crawl (which begins around 9 am until shortly before sundown) stretching from one end of town to the other. I assume, I hope, that this means we were here during peak season, but I can't be sure. We just sort of showed up here. But I digress. Hot yoga. Vortex tours and New Age Superstores. Pricey golfy timeshares. Pickups and Psychics and Audis. Many many CRYSTALS and amazing rocks, fossils, and the like. And two apparent attitudes, though I may be wrong about this - 1) being in a big road-ragey rush to get somewhere ELSE to relax; 2) a subtle Sedonan... smugness?
But enough about the human side of things... we are, after all, part of that problem. Despite the above, we've been enjoying ourselves greatly. Yesterday we treated each other to a rather dazzling helicopter ride over the areas and all those mindblowingly cool rock formations. It was pretty fabulous seeing them closer up from an eagle's perspective (here's a link to a short video I took from the helicopter HERE). We also hiked several trails, the most amazing of which was our climb up Cathedral Rock (See pictures below). The view is spectacular, as is being atop the the ancient, earthy energy of the place, serene and alive. Some places just have that energy... I remember a few years ago sitting on an old Mayan pyramid in Tikal, Guatemala, and having a similar experience... whether it is psychological or energetic, one can often feel a concentration of power in such places. Took a brief video from the top of Cathedral Rock, click HERE for the link.
On a more practical note, if you plan to hike Cathedral Rock, get to the trailhead early. We were asleep at 9 and up at around 5 (see previous entry) so we were able to get a coveted parking spot with no problem on the day we went up - but when we came down around 9:30 the parking lot was already full.
Quite frankly, Sedona is a spectacularly gorgeous place. One is surrounded by truly striking vistas, colossal rock formations in all manner of mystical earthy hues, interesting vegetation and groovy wildlife, all the while being held in the sunny womb of its balmy, dare I say near-perfect weather. It's really something.
One is similarly surrounded by a seeming perma-mob of tourists in a mad rush to consume the place like so much organic artisanal craft cheese. Getting many places unfortunately involves braving the bumper-to-bumper traffic crawl (which begins around 9 am until shortly before sundown) stretching from one end of town to the other. I assume, I hope, that this means we were here during peak season, but I can't be sure. We just sort of showed up here. But I digress. Hot yoga. Vortex tours and New Age Superstores. Pricey golfy timeshares. Pickups and Psychics and Audis. Many many CRYSTALS and amazing rocks, fossils, and the like. And two apparent attitudes, though I may be wrong about this - 1) being in a big road-ragey rush to get somewhere ELSE to relax; 2) a subtle Sedonan... smugness?
But enough about the human side of things... we are, after all, part of that problem. Despite the above, we've been enjoying ourselves greatly. Yesterday we treated each other to a rather dazzling helicopter ride over the areas and all those mindblowingly cool rock formations. It was pretty fabulous seeing them closer up from an eagle's perspective (here's a link to a short video I took from the helicopter HERE). We also hiked several trails, the most amazing of which was our climb up Cathedral Rock (See pictures below). The view is spectacular, as is being atop the the ancient, earthy energy of the place, serene and alive. Some places just have that energy... I remember a few years ago sitting on an old Mayan pyramid in Tikal, Guatemala, and having a similar experience... whether it is psychological or energetic, one can often feel a concentration of power in such places. Took a brief video from the top of Cathedral Rock, click HERE for the link.
On a more practical note, if you plan to hike Cathedral Rock, get to the trailhead early. We were asleep at 9 and up at around 5 (see previous entry) so we were able to get a coveted parking spot with no problem on the day we went up - but when we came down around 9:30 the parking lot was already full.