Day one underway

It was a full but uneventful flight from Columbus to Phoenix yesterday afternoon. There was a minor incident at the car rental where after we got situated in the car the “service airbag” message appeared, so we had to transfer everything to another car. We hit rush hour traffic out of Phoenix but still made it to Sedona in 2 hours. The part of the drive we did see was beautiful but it turned dark about ¾ way through.

We made it to the resort where we found a spacious, nicely appointed unit. After settling in for the night we heard a loud, vibrating noise that we determined was the hot water heater that was located inside the bedroom closet, basically inches from our heads. No idea why anyone would design the hot water heater to be located inside the bedroom closet. It will be interesting to see how annoyed we get with this over the week.

We set the alarm very early for our 5:55AM pick up for our hot air balloon ride with Red Rock Balloons. As expected, our bodies were still on Eastern time so we woke up before the alarm anyway. We headed back out in the dark to our pick up site, still only knowing what Sedona looks like from pictures. The van took us to the launch site as the sun started to rise. Amazingly beautiful!

The crew worked to assemble and inflate our balloon. There were 2 balloons being launched at the same time. Our balloon had 15 people plus the pilot. Loading the passengers was a process in itself. Some of the passengers had to get in while the basket was still on its side and basically lay on their sides until the basket was upright at which time the rest of us had to climb up and over to get in. Before we knew it we were ascending; a very surreal feeling. We were immediately awed by the views. Our pilot Mark did a great job of explaining the science of hot air ballooning as well as pointing out all of the landmarks. We went as high up as 3,000 feet and as low as skimming the tree tops. We did not see as many animals as we had hoped but did see a hard of deer, a couple of rabbits and some horses. We were in the air for about an hour, the landing was much softer than I had imagined. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

The temperature in the morning for the balloon ride was very comfortable but it soon climbed to the upper 80s. I know everyone says it is a dry heat but to me it was still just plain hot. We had lunch at the Coffee Pot Restaurant in Sedona. Adam got one of their 101 omelets, his love of breakfast food is the reason this was on our list to visit. Overall the food was good.
We then drove into Uptown Sedona. We made a quick stop at the Chamber of Commerce and then walked the strip of shops. It was extremely commercial and reminded us of many of the port stops on our cruises - alternating shops of novelty tourist items and overpriced jewelry stores. There were also many timeshare representatives standing in doorways asking if we needed any maps or help booking tours. I expected this from what I read online but was still slightly disappointed.

On the way back to the resort we stopped at Airport Mesa to get a view from their famous overlook and also to try to find the Airport Mesa vortex. Our stop at the overlooked brought to light a potential issue with my great idea of seeing our first views of Sedona from the hot air balloon; the other views seem to pale in comparison. We will go back to the Airport Mesa overlook at sunset one night as this is when everyone says it is the most spectacular. I am unsure if we found the vortex, neither of us felt any of the energy that the vortexs are supposed to exude. There are other vortexes on the scenic driving tours we have planned, we will see if we feel anything at one of those.

We think we are staying in tonight. Downtown Sedona was extremely crowded today and we expect that being a Saturday night most restaurants will be packed. We have plenty of nights to try the other restaurants I have on our list based on online reviews.
Tomorrows schedule includes one of the famous timeshare presentations. For sitting through 1.5 hours of pushy sales we will get tickets for our Broken Arrow Trail Pink Jeep Tour already scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

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Part of trip: Sedona, Arizona

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