Sedona is a total stunner of a town – and I also couldn’t shake the feeling that it is a little silly. They take their woo-woo very seriously. You can get your aura read, or cleansed, or smudged, you can commune with the spirits or crystals or tarot or any number of things, all with spiritual healers eager to embrace you and your $150 per hour plus tax. I was tempted to have them do an aura reading for Liam – which I’m pretty sure would appear in spirit form a little like this:
Sitting here in Louisiana months later I am now actually regretting that I didn’t do it. I think the process of watching Liam go through an aura reading would have been the experience of a lifetime.
We arrived in Sedona at our air bnb well after dark, and the children raced into every room, opening every closet, utterly charmed by the pretty basic furnishings of the pretty basic condo. I guess they were already tired of hotels! We moved our stuff in, took hot showers to scrub off the Canyonlands dust, and then they settled onto the couch to watch some Sponge Bob before bed.
I left the boys and dashed to the grocery nearby to grab some milk and other basics, including Pillsbury cinnamon rolls as a treat for breakfast. While I was gone, the boys got settled into bed. Liam picked the bedroom with the king bed and Craig decided that he and I would share the queen. It was cute – my lil buddy, he got his whole side of the bed all set up with a charger, his Rocket Raccoon puppet on the pillow, his clothes laid out, and put my pjs on my pillow on my side of the bed. A clearly uneven distribution of bed space but by the time I got home it was a done deal, so I did a load of laundry, organized our stuff a bit, and then crawled in with Craiggy boy. Long day.
The next day, I got the boys up early-ish to get ready to go to Slide Rock State Park, a former apple orchard/farm that features natural rock waterslides and is a popular spot in the heat of the summer. We put on our swimsuits, applied sunscreen, gathered our towels and snacks and had everything ready to go. Twenty minutes later we arrived at the entrance to the park and found a line along the shoulder of the road that stretched a half a mile. At the end of the line stood a flag man waving off anyone else trying to line up. We got there 20 minutes after it opened and still that was too late.
Well. I had planned Slide Rock for this day and Walnut Canyon National Monument for the next (Fourth of July), since both are within striking distance of our AirBNB. When making plans, I had thought that Slide Rock would probably be absolute madness on the actual Fourth – but turns out it is absolute madness every day of the week in summer. We weren’t getting in on July 3, that was clear. As we sailed past the Slide Rock entrance and back of the line, I quickly pulled out my map app and plotted the drive to Walnut Canyon, which is close to Flagstaff. We were pointed the right direction – from where we stayed, Slide Rock is on the way to Walnut Canyon – so the day’s plans pivoted to hiking instead of swimming. As I drove us along winding mountain roads through the Coconino Forest, closely hemmed in on either side by trees and/or cliffs, I did a mental inventory. Thank heavens I had brought a change of dry clothes for us, and I’d left the shoe bag in the car so we could switch from water shoes to hiking shoes. We didn’t have socks . . . hmmmmm . . . oh, but we were carrying a bag of clothes pre-packed by the Philmont hiking boys for them to have after we picked them up – we could steal socks out of there. Voila! We could make the switch in itinerary without even having to go back to fetch anything, and forty-five-beautiful-drive-minutes later we pulled into the entrance to the park.
Now, a little word about this particular national monument. I had found out about this gem on a blog post by Arizona-area moms. It’s a cool little canyon that was formerly occupied by cliff dwelling native peoples, and the cliff dwellings remain intact. Here is how the site describes it:
Come gaze across curved canyon walls. Among the remarkable geological formations of the canyon itself, the former homes of ancient inhabitants are easily evident. Along the trails you can imagine life within Walnut Canyon, while visiting actual pueblos and walking in the steps of those who came before.
After flashing our national parks card at the gate, we pulled into a completely full parking lot. My resilience sorely tested by another hurdle, I took a deep breath and decided to circle the lot one more time, and HALLELUJAH – a car was pulling out of a spot right toward the back, and it was even in the shade! The boys changed in the back of the Expedition, and I found a women’s restroom nearby (wrestling with swimsuit tops and sports bras was not a thing I was prepared to do huddled in the back of an SUV). Once appropriately shod in our hiking gear, we put on our shoes, shoved hats firmly on our heads, and headed out to the visitor’s center. Craig was immediately accosted by an enthusiastic and delightful ranger who pressed a junior ranger workbook into his hand and gave him the instructions to join the ranger ranks. He followed her instructions closely, and I took many, many pictures like the one below of Craig studiously filling out his junior ranger workbook.
The park is not huge – there are basically two trails, one around the rim of the canyon and one that goes in a circle on a narrow path at the midpoint of the canyon’s depth.
The 1 mile Island Trail starts at the Visitor’s Center, plunges down 240 steep concrete steps, dropping 185 feet to the middle of the canyon wall where the cliff-dwellings are. We did this one first, as this trail is the showstopper – well-preserved shallow living spaces carved into the rock, walled up and sectioned out internally with a primitive (and clearly hardy) stone and mortar system. Although artifacts show that people have lived in the canyon for thousands of years, the fortified limestone alcoves we walk past on the trail are “only” about 900 years old. Per the website: Archeologists labeled this prehistoric culture Sinagua, from the old Spanish name for the region, Sierra de Sin Agua, or “mountains without water.” Scattered families farmed the canyon rims for centuries, growing small gardens of corn, squash, and beans.
We took a few steps along the top of the trail, and I realized that the wind was about to snatch away my wide brimmed hat, so I ran to the car to switch to a ball cap, less prone to become airborne and sail down into the canyon below. (I never quite shook the fear that the children would become airborne and tumble into the canyon below). This was a trail that made me glad for all the weight training I’ve done – 185 steps is a lot of steps, up or down, and especially at 7,000 feet elevation. There were railings in some places, but none in others, with just air and scrubby grasses between the hiker and a steep many-hundred foot drop.
As we tromped down the stairs, we almost stepped on scurrying lizards with stunning bright blue tails. (I just looked it up – they were blue tailed skinks! They were everywhere, diligently excavating holes in the soft ground beside the concrete path.) We stopped and read every placard, and Craig diligently completed his junior ranger workbook – Liam and I helped. “Preserving nature” is part of the junior ranger pledge, and Craig very proudly and showily picked up a fruit snack that he had dropped, and put it in his pocket to throw away later.
We thoroughly explored the cave dwellings, walking in the ones we were allowed to, all of us but Craig having to duck to get in. We learned about the Native Americans that used to live there, including where they grew their crops, where they stored their tools, how they collected water, and how they lived. It was very windy the whole way – pinyon and ponderosa pines waving wildly, Craig’s little paperwork bundle constantly at risk of going flying. Through the course of our hike, he learned about how the indigenous peoples (and many tourists thereafter) learned to make sweet treats out of prickly pear cactus; he learned to tell a Ponderosa pine by smelling the bark (butterscotch!); he drew a picture of several types of grasses, plus fun facts about them all.
The trail forms a loop from the base of the steps – meaning once you’ve completed the loop, you gotta walk up those steps. The boys definitely beat me to the top by a landslide, though I handled the walk up better than some folks who I saw possibly having a coronary. (Not really – they did make it up, I kept an eye out, and eventually recovered their equilibrium. But these steps were a challenge for sure.) Once at the top, we sat on the cool smooth concrete ground of the visitor’s center covered patio and Craig finished his junior ranger stuff. We had a little beef jerky and some water, and then Craig turned in his paperwork and, with a ramrod straight spine and shining eyes, accepted his commission as a Bona Fide Junior Ranger, badge and all.
We next did the Rim trail – much shorter, much less strenuous, just a flat 3/4 mile trail that starts along the edge of the canyon and then turns inward into the pinyon forest, past some of the pueblo dwellings on situated there. These dwellings were largely reconstructions, some dug into the ground and others built on top.
Our dogs were barking after this, so we headed into Flagstaff for lunch. On the way I found a drive through car wash and we ran the Expedition through, then vacuumed it out thoroughly – SO SATISFYING. We had enchiladas and margaritas (just me!) at Agave Mexican Restaurant and then headed back to the condo for a nap.
We come home and napped for a bit, getting some good downtime. I made the boys boxed mac and cheese for dinner. After dinner, I got them set up with a dozen postcards we had bought at one of the parks. We each took four to fill out and send to family and friends. The boys did not 100% know what a postcard is, so we talked about the art of writing a little tiny message in a tiny little box on the back of a nice picture. After getting those sorted, we went to a nearby ice cream shop in a high end strip mall. There was a family of four in front of us in line, all the kids 6 and under, and it was chaos but the parents were easygoing, kids boisterous in an age appropriate way. Mom took the ambulatory children outside after picking their cones, and Dad was left to carry all of the ice cream and a stroller . . . the whole line laughed and everyone pitched in to get him situated. Our turn at the counter – Craig got a strawberry shortcake cone, Liam got vanilla in a cup, and I got mangonada sorbet.
Rather than drive home, we wandered up and down the shopping mall a bit, bats flying overhead, young girls attempting sexy selfies in the dark (“OMG I look terrible! It’s so blurry! Let’s try again!”) . We licked our fingers, drove home, then the boys headed to bed and I started packing up. This was the stage where I began to weary of packing and unpacking. Our next stop would be 3 nights in one place, so I was hoping I would rally with that bit of rest.
I woke those boys at the crack of dawn the next day. It was the Fourth of July, Slide Rock State Park was going to be a madhouse, but we were NOT going to miss the natural waterslide. I got us to the entrance a half hour before the park opened, and were about the 20th car in line – huzzah! We made it!
This was so fun. I did not carry my phone around much for this one – I settled it into the bottom of our bag, secured it under a tree with our towels and stuff, and just clambered over rocks with the boys. This was another instance where I was so happy to be strong from all my weight training – I could confidently climb up and down the rock faces, hoist each boy out of the water with only slippery algae-covered rocks to stand on, and most importantly, use these abs to hold my bum and sitting bits up off the pointy rocky bottom of the slide as I whooshed down from top to bottom. The slide itself was a bit . . . abusive . . . but a total hoot. The water was so cold, I could barely breathe.
We slid down the chute a dozen times. We jumped off a tall rock into a shockingly cold deep pool while everyone waiting in line behind us cheered and whooped and hollered – Liam did it once, I did it twice, and Craiggy did it three times. Virtually no one in the crowd was speaking English – there were Vietnamese folks, Chinese folks, and dozens of huge sprawling Mexican families speaking only Spanish and I could have translated it for you though I don’t speak a word. Grown kids teasing their elderly parents about falling over while they tried to walk on the slippery rocks, while the parents giggled and screeched as they slithered and slipped and eventually just sat on their bums and scooched like a toddler. Young adults carefully packed six packs of soda and beer into cold deep pools as a natural ice chest, and then hollered as an eddy of water sent the cans all tumbling down the falls and floating away. Onlookers scattered to help gather them up. Adults took turns stationing themselves at the bottom of the chute to catch any kid who couldn’t get out him/herself. It was crowded and busy but everyone was friendly and kind, naturally falling together to become part of a communal celebration of America on its “birthday.”
We stayed at the park until lunchtime, at which point our bodies could take no more abuse from the creek. Beaten and scratched, hungry and wet, covered in red rock dust and green slimy moss on the inside of our swimsuits, and with giant bruises forming on multiple places after too many wipeouts on the slippery rocks, we gathered up our towels and what was left of our battered limbs and headed back to the condo to pack up and leave. On the way out, I bought the boys some overpriced pink-colored sticks of prickly pear candy so we could see what it tasted like after Craig had learned all about it at Walnut Canyon. The texture was very weird – it was like an extremely sticky cross between a gumdrop and taffy – but it tasted good enough.
Our next home base, Scottsdale, was only two hours away. So even after showering and checking out of the condo, we were not in a hurry to get on the road. I decided last minute to visit the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a lovely glass-front church built directly into the red rocks of the Coconino Forest in Sedona. The church itself is beautiful, and so are the stunning views from the church.
A little off the main road out of Sedona, the church is at the top of a steep and tightly winding paved road, with the steepest parking lot I’ve ever parked in. I was moderately worried we were going to tip over as I parked the car. The boys and I hiked up the last few steep feet to the small but beautifully designed church building.
All were welcome inside – this was not a Sunday, so there were no services. In the Catholic tradition, just inside the door was a votive stand with a collection box in front. As is my own tradition whenever I’m in a Catholic church, I said a prayer for my Pap and lit a candle (mother’s father – died in 1999 – very devout Catholic). I explained the ritual of honoring our dead loved ones to the boys, and after digesting the information for a moment, Craig tugged my arm and whispered in my ear “does it have to be a person?” Oh my heart. I told him no, and he solemnly lit a candle for our dog Virgil, who had died just a week or so prior. The three of us then wandered up to the kneelers to pray under the gaze of a very large dramatic statue of Jesus on the cross – beautiful and a bit unnerving.
We did not stay long – I did not trust my squirrelly boys to be able to kneel in stillness for too many minutes – and Liam somehow managed to fall off the kneeler and twist his wrist so badly it swelled up and bothered him for days. I dragged my hot mess pack of children past a stunning portrait of Mary, then down into the crypt, which turned out to be a giant Christian bookstore/gift shop. After a quick jaunt through, we headed out and back into the car to drive ourselves to Scottsdale – which is where we shall pick this up next time.
