The "Painted Desert" of Sedona is Real

The Red Rock monoliths, as they are called, surrounding Sedona are spectacular! There must be 20 shades of red, orange, pink and tan, all so picturesque it makes you think they must have really been “painted” as limestone and sandstone have never looked so vibrantly colored, except in Bryce Canyon, Utah which has similar hues. Today we took a hike to Brin’s Mesa. The trailhead is not far from town, and winds its way through the Coconino National Forest filled with ponderosa pine trees that are a brilliant shade of green in this sunshine and thin, dry air (4500’ at the trailhead). From the top of the mesa, views extended in all directions to nearby and far-away red rock formations, of which Bob took many photos, and you’ll see a couple included. Though the morning started out chilly again (42), by the time we reached the mesa it was 80 degrees with a light breeze. We had lunch at the top, then headed back down. We drove to the Oak Creek Canyon north of town and had a beer on the shore of the creek at Encinoso, where Cathryn dozed off for 20 minutes while Bob read the New York Times, which is much easier to find in Arizona than it was in Baja (not at all!) We do not plan to post anything to the blog tomorrow, as the day will be filled with “mechanics of life”, a topic we’ve thoroughly discussed in previous posts. However, we’ll be breaking camp here, driving to Las Vegas, and picking up Adrienne at the airport just before midnight, as she’s arriving to spend her spring break from the University of Colorado with us. It looks like about a 6-hour drive, and because of Adrienne’s late arrival, we’ve booked a room in an airport hotel so we won’t need to bother driving a long way back to a campground, setting up a tent for Adrienne, then breaking it all down early the next morning. Sunday morning we’ll cross the border into California and head for Joshua Tree National Park for a couple of days. Cathryn’s chin is recovering nicely and is hardly bothering her at all. Adrienne says if we can’t find a convenient Urgent Care Clinic next week, she’ll remove the stitches for Cathryn on Wednesday!