Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona

Posted on March 24, 2013March 24, 2013 by Dusty Roads

And the answer is…The Chapel of the Holy Cross located in Sedona, Arizona.

The Chapel was a gift from Marguerite Brunswig Staude who felt that a church should be dedicated to finding God through art.

Sedona is known for its spiritual energies and seems an appropriate place for a church that still seems ageless even in 2013. The groundbreaking was in April 1955 and completed in 18 months at a cost of only $300,000 a modest sum even for those days. The dedication was in the spring of 1957.

The most prominent feature is the cross which seems to be wedged into the distinctive red rocks as though it was just planted there by some giant pilgrim.

When you go to Sedona one of the first things to do is take the trolley ride. It’s a great way to get a feel for the area. The trolley will take you right to the Chapel and allow you time to climb the ramp to the top and explore the interior.

Inside the chapel is intimate and unadorned. Benches hug the angular walls. Down the center are 14 pews in two rows of 7 each. Your eyes are drawn to the cross in the center with the floor-to-ceiling windows behind it.

It creates an atmosphere to let the spirit soar.

When I visited there was little decoration. Apart from two tapestries on the wall the only other striking color is the flickering ruby-red devotion candles.

The Chapel is surrounded by the iconic rock formations of Sedona, Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte, Cathedral Rock, even a spire known as Madonna and Child.

This is truly one of the “Must-see” sights of Sedona.

A is for Alaska

Posted on August 15, 2011August 15, 2011 by Dusty Roads

or Alabama or Arkansas or Arizona..any other “A” states? I think I got them all.

Where is this going? you might ask and my answer is Alaska , Alabama, Arkansas and Arizona.It’s not just where am I going but where have I been and where do I still want to go.

There’s a magnetic map they make where you can collect a magnet from each state you visit and eventually the whole map will be covered with magnets. Maybe I’ll get one someday. Until then I think I’ll just go on chronicling and planning .

To that end I thought I’d take stock of things and the easiest way is alphabetically.

So of the 4 states that start with A I’ve only been to one, Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, home of Red Rock Country and the New Age land of Sedona. It’s where I took my first and so far only helicopter ride. I’ve stuck my feet in the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I’ve marveled over ancient Indian Ruins and strolled through an “African Serengeti” and all that only scratched the surface.

Alaska. Where to start? It’s such a huge state. It’s where I hope my vacation will take me in 2012. I want to see the glaciers and animals; lots of wild animals. There should be bears and seals and bald eagles. There might even be a wolf and whales. We’ll cruise the Inside Passage and spend time in Denali.

Now we get to the other “A”s. Arkansas and Alabama. I don’t know much about them as far as tourist locations but lets see what I can dig up.

Arkansas: Well the Clinton Library immediately comes to mind. After all, Bill Clinton is still a prominent figure, not some dead president. But if that’s all there is it would be a very short visit. Arkansas is a center for quartz crystal mining. Hot Springs and Mt. Ida have Dig-Your-Own Crystal Mines. That could be interesting. The Arkansas Ozarks are beautiful forests and mountains with loads of hiking trails but beneath your feet is a labyrinth of cave systems. Tours abound so that could also be interested along with canoeing and kayaking the wilderness areas with my trusty camera in hand. I’m sure there’s more and I’ll have plenty of time to see what else I can find.

Last but not least is Alabama. Right off the bat I can tell you there are National Parks. A great opportunity to collect my Park Stamps. I believe there are 7 separate parks spread throughout the state. Indian culture…the Trail of Tears of the Cherokee people as they were forced to leave their homeland. How about other history. Alabama was a hot bed of history in the civil rights movement and a visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute sounds like a good way to start exploring it. There are Zoos and Aquariums and more history with the Civil War Trail. Sounds like that could be a very full vacation too.

After the “A”s comes “b” but I don’t think there’s a state that starts with “B”? Am I wrong? If there are no B’s we’ll have to move on to the C’s. But I’ll save that for another post.

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If any of you have been to these states or live there and can offer some suggestions or insight, I’d love to have your comments.

Mount Washington Cog Railway Photo Contest

Posted on July 21, 2011July 21, 2011 by Dusty Roads

A couple of updates to start: The first is that I didn’t hear from the bank today. I was told they would call me to pick up my new card and set up my password. Maybe it didn’t come yet. Or…maybe they forgot to call. I think I’ll drop in on the way to work in the morning.

The second update is the dinner. As always my friends Diane and Joe served up a wonderful meal along with great conversation. Diane was the chef of the day and since its soooo hot we had chicken salad… very excellent chicken salad but the crowning glory was her desert. It was a lemon pie that was like a chiffon with whipped cream. It was so smooth and light. As I said in the beginning, a wonderful meal but it’s really the company I enjoy. Diane and Joe are both warm friendly people with lots of interesting things to talk about. Last night topics ranged from consignment shops and thrift stores to gyms, spas and workouts, to blogs and vacations and travel. The evening just flew by.

I was even honored with a visit from Maxine, their very pretty cat with lovely green eyes. I wish I had a photo of her but Max is a bit photo shy and only approached me when the camera was out of reach. Still I’m just honored that she was willing to come out to “say hello” as she usually hides or sleeps most of the time when I am there. Maybe she’s mellowing as she ages.

Now to the main point of the blog. This morning I had a few minutes before work so I was checking prices on the places I want to go in New Hampshire. The Mount Washington Cog Railway is definitely high on my list.

The Price of an adult ticket is $62.00 (gulp!) but of all the places I’m planning to visit, that is the most expensive so I guess that’s not too bad. I’ve certainly spent more on tours and trips but I guess I think it’s expensive because it’s close to home. I don’t think twice about something like that when I travel like we did to Sedona

or South Dakota.

But as I was reviewing the web pages I spotted another Photo Contest. At the end of the Season, a winning photo will be chosen and the photographer will receive a ride for two passengers in the cab of one of our new eco-friendly, biodiesel locomotives next year! Now that’s interesting and unlike a far away prize, I live close enough to be able to use it! So it looks like I have 2 photo contests to try now.

And lastly my travails with computers and money continue. Today as I went in to enter my time worked so I can have a paycheck waiting for me after vacation, the computer system locked me out. That was at 10:30 in the morning. When I left work at 9 pm HR, payroll and IT were still working on it and I was still locked out. I have 1 more day of work before vacation so here’s hoping they get the problem resolved. At this point I can only shake my head and laugh. I have never in all my life, with all my ups and downs financially, had so many little annoyances in such a short time in the money department. It feels like an obstacle course. As long as these money issues stay small like this I can handle it!

Well, time to wrap up this post. Can’t wait to get back to the travel stuff! As you may have guessed , this is just “filler” til I have a chance to get “more places to go and things to see.” Thanks for hanging in with me during this interlude.

Sedona Vacation 2011, That’s a wrap!

Posted on June 11, 2011June 11, 2011 by Dusty Roads

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

Posted on June 9, 2011June 9, 2011 by Dusty Roads

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.