Escape From the Vortex

Happy day after Thanksgiving! Michelle's dad and stepmom graced us with our first Flagstaff visitors. Our place is pretty comfortable, and the weather has been good, cold in the mornings and in the low 60s during the day.

In an effort to work off the excessive amounts of food we consumed on Thanksgiving, and to try to center our spiritual beings, we ventured from the comforts of the Flagstaff townhouse and visited the Sedona, Arizona canyon lands. They are rumored to be full of vortexes which, best as we can figure, are places where new-age hippies lick colorful toads and ask their companions if they saw the size of that chicken. They say that just because you don't feel the vortexes working doesn't mean they aren't working their magic on you, which I think involves convincing you to buy some very expensive artwork in Sedona. We may not have been wearing enough crystals to truly focus all that energy, or perhaps our breakfast chanting was not vigorous enough, but the hiking was great anyways. We decided on a nice trail called cow pies, which is so named because the red rock formations look like strange oversized cow pies from above.

After escaping from the over the top crowds in town we found a nice spot that involved driving on a dirt road and getting out of your car and walking a little, which is generally enough of a discouragement to the masses to ensure a little privacy. After losing the slack jawed yokels in the pink jeep tours the hiking was great, lots of exciting things to see and just to keep you on your toes just about every plant had thorns about 2 inches long, I'm still hobbled from a nice prickly pear I took to the ankle.

After hiking we explored the town of Sedona a little but were disappointed at the masses of people that decided to have a town day, it looked like Wal-mart during their day after T-day sale. That's when I really felt the vortex hit as my head was spinning and nausea was well on its way. We couldn't even get into the brewery there, the Oak Creek Brewery, which was a bummer even though I can't say I'm crazy about their beer. After eating we quickly escaped and headed back up the hill for a more sane environment. I think next time we visit Sedona it will be mid-week and not on a holiday (I promise not to take anymore of our visitors there). I think that if we end up leaving Arizona it will be because it seems harder to escape the masses here, I think that the shell shocked inhabitants of Phoenix ooze out into all other areas of the state every chance they get. The less intense and much more liberal atmosphere of Northern California may end up being more up our alley, but we'll enjoy Flagstaff while we are here, it's a good place to have a critter and plan our next adventure.

I hope that everyone had a great holiday!