Beautiful Red Rock Country: Sedona, Az

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We left Sunday at 10am, and headed out on the 8 East. Our first stop was at the Golden Acorn Casino where we learned this trip was going to be a good one. We stopped at the Casino mostly for restroom use, but decided we might as well gamble and see what happens. We each put two dollars in quarter slots, and on the very last pull of the lever we decided to both put our hands on the lever, and BOOM, we won $12. Our dreams are coming true. We tripled our money--in one word, success.

After that excitement, we drove about 7/8 hours, trying to switch off every 100 miles and stopping at interesting gas stations and such along the way. They have a gas station chain called Love's here in Arizona. It's kind of funny, mostly because you don't usually associate gas stations with things like love. Gas stations are generally filled with smelly things--like gas, and smelly people. Maybe we are easily amused, but we thought it was funny. Anyway, we also saw a McDonald's that was closed with a sign outside that said, "No bread. Closed." Who knew McDonald's could run out of bread?

We got into beautiful Sedona, Arizona at about 8:30pm yesterday (the 4th), and after wandering around quite a bit, we found a hotel called the Amara. It's a really cute place right along a creek that runs through Sedona. When we got in to Sedona we were thinking we would leave early this morning and head directly to the Grand Canyon, until we realized that we needed to spend the day here to see everything because it's beautiful! "Red Rock Country" is amazing, not to mention the history, art, and shopping (albeit limited, thanks to Andrew).

We got some breakfast this morning, and did a little shopping. After that, we got a map with the important rocks designated and went on a little drive to see them all. Eventually, we ended up at some Native American ancient ruins and decided to take a little hiking adventure to the Palatki Ruins of the Sinagua (without water) Indians. We took two trails, one to the Sinagua cliff dwellings, and the other to the rock art alcoves. There were tons of petroglyphs and pictographs and this was all built by the Sinagua Indians near 1150, and they left around 1300, presumably due to a drought. The buildings they built were two stories tall, and you could see fingerprints in the building material. There was a ton of charcoal buildup where they cooked these huge plants in the area. After eating the heart of the plant, they would spit out the fibrous material and use it to weave baskets, etc. The doorways are really small, and the Sinaguas are said to have been very small. It was neat to see, and we were proud of ourselves for stumbling upon that adventure!

We grabbed a little snack, and will be heading out to dinner later this evening, followed by our trip out to the Grand Canyon in the morning!

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Photos

Road to the Ruins
The signs said. "Caution: Primitive Road."