Category Archives: Arizona

A is for…

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I was thinking about the upcoming Alaska trip and it hit me that after Alaska I will still have 2 more states that start with A to visit.
Arizona
Two visits to Arizona gave me memories of the Grand Canyon, Montezuma’s Castle, Meteor Crater to name just a few of the sights.

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On my second trip I even got to share some of those experiences with my sister.

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There’s still so much more to see there as well.

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Slot Canyons and Monument Valley to the north and Saguaro National Park and Tombstone to the south and much more. I could plan return tips every year and not see it all.

Alaska

Coming up in just a couple of weeks is another “trip of a lifetime” but this one is to Alaska. From Vancouver to Anchorage by sea and the interior for a stay in Denali. We have a full schedule but once again we’ll only be scratching the surface. I’d love to see the bears of Katmai especially during the salmon run and  the aurora borealis.

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Alabama

Museums, battlefields, botanical gardens and nature trails. I’m sure there’s more. Usually when I start looking at a state more and more places of interest crop up. When we went to South Dakota the most common question I got was “What’s in South Dakota?”. Way more than you’d think but I’ll save that discussion for “S”.

Arkansas

And the 4th state starting with A is Arkansas. The thing that comes to mind first is The Clinton Library. National Geographic lists a drive through the Ozarks as one of the “Drives of a Lifetime” . Blanchard Springs Caverns  are ranked among the most beautiful underground discoveries of the 20th  century. National Parks, a diamond mine, civil war battlefields, even a restore antebellum town to explore, seems like Arkansas has  a lot to offer when its turn come up.

So tell me, have you been to an “A” state? Do you live in one? What can you share about any of the “A’s”?

Another photo Challenge

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According to the paper this is the “World’s Largest Photo Contest”.

Since I entered a few photo contests last year I get invitations to enter photo contests all the time. I seldom do because they all have that “popularity” part and I’ve never been one of the “In Crowd”. I don’t have 1000+ Facebook friends and of the friends I have on Face book probably only about a dozen are active and of those maybe 5 will actually take the time to vote.

In this case my friend Nancy gave me the paper with the details on this contest.

But this contest seems different.  This is a juried contest. In other words there are real judges. They do have a popularity portion but it’s not for the “Grand Prize”. So I figured ..Why Not… so I spent the afternoon submitting photos. I may submit some more..who knows?

Anyway, I have a link that I believe will take you to my contest page. I’ve uploaded 12 photos so far. I think you can vote for one or all or any combination. I would really appreciate your support. It would be fun to win one of these competitions.

http://metrophotochallenge.com/profile/30030/df1f8a74c7e0f508d3de53ebf90e6a6b

Sedona Vacation 2011, That’s a wrap!

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As is my habit, I am including a summary of my vacation. I like to fill in any gaps I missed or answer any questions that came up during the series of posts and just give you  my final take on the vacation as a whole.

This was my 2nd trip to Sedona and Northern Arizona. The first trip I traveled alone. This trip with a companion, my sister. The first trip was really unbelievable because I had the freedom to do what I wanted , when I wanted and didn’t need to think about anyone else. This trip required that I be a bit more considerate but seeing my sister’s reactions and sharing her observations as a “first time” visitor made it totally worth it.

That’s the thing about vacations. I love going alone but when I do I wish someone was with me so we could oooh and aaahhh over the sights together but when you travel with someone you have to balance the things you want to do so that everyone stays happy and satisfied. After all, vacations don’t come cheap these days. Luckily my sister and I usually get along pretty good as far as agreeing on what to see and do.

So I will rate this vacation as an A for me. I didn’t give it an A+ because I’d seen a lot of the stuff before but even seeing it a 2nd time was great.

The Grand Canyon Railroad is always a fun ride and now I know the best seat is the Observation dome car.

The Petrified Forest is interesting but doesn’t take long unless you’re a real “rock hound”. The Teepee formations and the painted Desert were more interesting to me.

 The wildlife wasn’t much better this time than last time. We saw a mule deer this trip. Sandy saw 2, one as we were driving down 89 A  and one from the train. I saw a mule deer family last trip in the Grand Canyon National park but not outside the park.

We saw a Roadrunner this trip and I saw one last trip. We didn’t see a live Pronghorn this  trip but I did from the Grand Canyon train last trip. We had to settle for the mounted  head at the Blazin’ M ranch this time.

Speaking of the Blazin’M, the show was just as good, maybe even a little better this time but the food was nowhere near as good as it was in my first visit. But food aside, I would go back to that show in a minute. It’s great fun. Of course leading up to the show was the Verde Canyon railroad and that was special with two great views of bald eagles!

As for new stuff, I think for me anyway, seeing the Pueblo at Tuzigoot and the cliff dwelling at Montezuma’s castle were the high points right after the Grand Canyon of course. The Painted Desert was pretty cool too.

As for the Grand Canyon, I love the breathtaking views from the rim but I can’t help feeling pretty special to be one of the 1% to make it to the bottom of the canyon.

 I also have to say that the tour guide (Joe) from Native American Tours proved to be the most thorough guide I’ve had in Arizona. What he shared in his one tour came up over and over in all the rest of our adventures.

Back to wildlife…we didn’t see any javalinas this trip but we saw a “flycatcher” and I got a picture of that. That little red and brown bird was pretty neat.

 There were the little lizard things too. Just like Florida they are everywhere!

The desert was beautiful too. The cactus was in bloom from all the rain.

That’s not something that happens all the time and the Red Rocks of Sedona are always beautiful. The color is just so rich and vibrant.

It’s “dark sky” too so with the minimal lights at night you have awesome viewing for the stars and the night sky.

Enjoy a little vino and who knows, you too can believe in aliens! 🙂

I’d like to make one more trip basically as a photo-op.  If I can I think I would like to spend a full day at the Grand Canyon and just work on pictures…maybe camp there one night so I can hit sunrise and sunset. I’d also include a trip to Monument Valley and Canyon De Chelley, again for photos. There’s also the slot canyons up near Page, Arizona that are known for awesome and unusual pictures.

So that’s my thoughts. I hope my sister enjoyed the trip as much as I did. I’m looking forward to our next joint adventure. With any luck it will be Alaska in 2012. (have to get there before the glaciers melt or the end of the world arrives in Dec of 2012)

Our last bit of vintage Sedona was the Hot Air Balloon we were able to watch from the balcony of our time share unit on Saturday morning before we left. That just made the trip complete as I saw Hot Air Balloons on my last day on my other trip. 🙂

Painted Desert

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The transition from Petrified Forest to Painted Desert was almost seamless. One minute the tour CD was talking about Petrified Logs and fossils and the next the Painted Desert. There was a brief transitional tract when we crossed the railroads tracks that was all about Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls. I have never seen so many railroads before either. I think it was Joe (Native American Journey’s again) who told us the trains run at 15 minute intervals. The trains are very long, most with flat cars loaded with containers either bound for port on the west coast or coming in to the area with goods. The tracks we passed on the border of the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert are the tracks of the Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe.

Near the railroad tracks we crossed an old Highway. Maybe you’ve heard of it, RT 66. The same RT 66 where we stopped for Ice Cream with Joe the Guide from Native American Journey’s. Wow, that tour and guide seems to have influenced our whole trip! Anyway, Rt 66 is 2200 miles long but Petrified Forest National Park is the only park in the National Park System that contains a segment of this iconic road. A road trip exploring the remnants of this famous highway might be an interesting vacation trip.

By now we were in the Painted Desert. This is the northern end of the Petrified Forest National Park. You can see the massive erosion that has sculpted and created amazing formations of buttes, mesa, hoodoos, and bluffs all in lovely pastels of red, green, purple, blue and other combinations. This type of erosion creates landscapes that are collectively called “Badlands”.

There are a series of well maintained pull offs where you can explore and take pictures. The colors are most intense in the early morning or late afternoon as the mid-day sun tends to make them look washed out. We had the opposite problem since shifting cloud cover was casting dark shadows over much of the landscape.

The pull off points have names like Lacy Point, Whipple Point, Nizhoni Point, Pintado Point, Chinde Point and Kachina Point.

Lacy and Whipple Points are named for individuals that influenced the park. Nizhoni Point is the Apache word for beautiful. Certainly fitting as the park is very beautiful.

Pintadao Point is one of the most famous views in the park. Pintado is Spanish for painted. You can see the highest point in the park , Pilot Rock from this location.

Chinde Point is a Navaho term. It means evil spirit or ghost. It is also famous for a nearly complete fossil found in 1985. “Gerty” was a small meat-eating dino that roamed the area about 200 million years ago.

Kachina Point is the location for the Painted Desert Inn. As it was starting to get late, we simply drove past the Inn but we did stop at the Visitor Center at the Northern End of the park. The rain caught us again so we headed back to RT 40 for the long drive back to Sedona. We arrived in Winslow too late to visit Meteor Crater this trip but if we were able to do everything in one trip we’d have no reason to come back.

We crossed in and out of rain showers and some pretty heavy downpours followed by patches of sun as we headed west toward Sedona.

I don’t think I’ve visited anyplace where I can say that I’ve seen everything I wanted to see.  I have a bucket list for a return trip everywhere I’ve been. Look at the Sedona Area/ Northern Arizona. It’s only the upper part of the state and I’ve made 2 visits but I still have a long list of places to see, things to do and of photographs I want to take and that’s not even taking into consideration everything there is to do south of Phoenix!

I’m pretty sure I’ll be back again, probably not for a couple of years. Other locations and trips are calling me but sooner or later I will return.