Saturday, June 11, 2016

End of the Road in Sedona

Little bit of catching up since I got some pics off the other phones. I don't know about your family going on vacation when you were growing up, but in the 1970's, we only went to the beach in Florida, or occasionally the mountains of Tennessee. In Florida, the hotel and restaurant of choice was Howard Johnson's, where I always ordered the fried clams. One time I ordered spaghetti, and I could only eat half off it, so got chewed out by my Dad about wasting food. Never ordered that again. The souvenir of choice was an airbrushed T-shirt or hermit crab. (Scott, do you have a scar from the time Tracey and I stuck the hermit crab in your underwear and the waistband popped it so it pinched you? Sorry!) Now that was Florida, but if we went northward, then everybody got moccasins, and we had the funniest picture of my sister (about 2 years old probably) pitching a fit while we took a picture with a nice Native American man fully outfitted with the Indian headdress, etc. So when I found moccasins in Moab, I was stunned that nobody wanted a pair. So much for carrying on family traditions.


This was a panorama of the roof from Lower Antelope Canyon - those guides know all kind of tricks for pictures there.


And does anybody recognize this view from the highway to Monument Valley? It was where Forrest Gump decided he was tired of running and turned around to go home. People pull over to get pictures here, so Lucas wasn't the only one standing in the middle of the road.


And now to Sedona, which was the end of our trip.


These are Honanki Indian ruins - this was apparently a 2-story structure with 80 rooms built up against the rock - cool!


Now let me explain these next 2 briefly. We went shopping in downtown Sedona, and Buck Thornton's World of Jerky was a must-see. Apparently the guy running it is the grandson of a Vegas dancer who made Tom Jones famous. They were best friends and she invited him to come sing, thus providing his break into show business.


And here you can see that his grandmother is on Tom Jones' album cover, just above center. (You can also see I wasn't quite sure if he was entirely sane, so I kept a fair distance.) Below center is apparently John Wayne singing Happy Birthday to someone, as well. Chick got around!


Now commencing random photos: Hummingbird at the hotel.


Boys mountain biking on some nice trails...


Which were easier to maneuver than these trails made for 4-wheeling! We were covered in red dirt after this.


Cool dead tree.


Okay, that's the last of the vacation pics, but I have one more post on people you meet on group tours, which will come tomorrow, because you're probably tired of reading now. After that, I have some pics of my escalating addiction. Do they make naloxone targeted to the knitting receptor? Because I need some!

7 comments:

Pam said...

How lovely! I've been on that road to Monument Valley -- too funny. BUT I've never been to Sedona thanks for sharing the pictures. It is supposed to be so "spiritual."

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Yes, crystals and aura-photography, etc. - very spiritual! Pam, you have taken the same vacation that I just did - it is destiny that you come to a GCGSW! Any chance you're flying out here in the next year? We have to get together sometime...

BeckyW said...

I'm loving your pictures! We have talked and talked about visiting this area. Seems like such a great trip!

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

I think it was one of our best trips - made me sorry we went to Universal Studios so many times when we could've been doing this, although it definitely helps for the kids to be older. What are your kids doing this summer? Drew's having a hard time finding a summer job so far...

BeckyW said...

We don't have a lot planned for the summer. Jessica has her orientation at Alabama scheduled for July. We plan to take some time in following it and get to know the area a bit. Maybe help her feel a bit more at home there. I'd love to find some hiking and swimming hole areas up there if possible. We plan to do a beach getaway at some point in the summer. She is getting back today from a Disney trip with her two best friends (and one mom). She decided to do this instead of her class trip. I really need to find Sam a community service job. He has a group he worked with last summer that is a church group that distributes food. He could do that again, but he really would love to do some volunteer work with dogs. Trouble is that he is 14 and a lot of rescue groups don't allow kids that age to volunteer.

BeckyW said...

Oh, and that pic of you and Drew at the top of the page with the moccasins is hilarious!!

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Ooh - there used to be some place north of B'ham, maybe near Jasper?, that my Botany class went to in college. Big hike to a beautiful waterfall, possibly called the Sipsey branch? I took Dean there in med school, and wouldn't you know that the waterfall was dry? Anyway, should be some nice places to hike in that area. I know they had kayaks the students could borrow for the river there! I wonder if the dog pound could use volunteers? I know somebody who would go pet the cats and play with them, but not sure about age limits...