{"id":674,"date":"2012-01-20T17:21:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T17:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernloon.net\/wordpress30\/?p=674"},"modified":"2025-04-21T17:41:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:41:54","slug":"phoenixsedona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/?p=674","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix\/Sedona"},"content":{"rendered":"

E&T hit the road for a winter break. We had to burn two tix from Allegiant Air or lose them. They fly straight from Rockford to Mesa Airport.\u00a0 It figures that the first snow storm of the year hammered us on the way down.\u00a0 Grim driving, grim flying.\u00a0 Flight delayed by several hours, but with some serious de-icing it took off just fine.\u00a0 We made it to the Holiday Inn Suites Mesa by 1:30 the next morning.\u00a0 (Nice room, giant bed, huge pool, no one in it. Too cool for the natives.)<\/p>\n

Up bright and early, great breakfast within walking distance of our Hotel. Then we motored over to Tempe to walk around.\u00a0 Man, is it dry in Phoenix!\u00a0 Total desert (8.5″ of rain per year.)\u00a0 Quite a shock coming from Wisconsin. Temps in the high 60’s, air quality amazingly clear. I’m quite sure that’s not a given.\u00a0 Downtown Tempe is compact and typical for a large college. The campus is vast, with a student population we heard is in excess of 50,000.<\/p>\n

We were entranced by the light rail that cut through town.\u00a0 Very modern.\u00a0 We unfortunately had no occasion to ride one.<\/p>\n

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In the afternoon we hiked a nearby city park named Papago.\u00a0 Two miles and no irrigation away, the dryness is dramatic compared to being “in town”. We baked in the sun and stoked up on Vitamin D.<\/p>\n

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After the hike, we motored around.\u00a0 Walked downtown Scottsdale, drank wine on an outdoor patio.\u00a0 Still great temps, fancy surroundings.\u00a0 We need another million in our portfolio to fit in there.<\/p>\n

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Finished the evening with Mexican dinner at Mangos, in downtown Mesa.\u00a0 There is a real downtown, it was full of people (regular folks), street musicians, not too upscale.\u00a0 Mangos was a popular locals hangout, very basic, above average food.<\/p>\n

The next day, we took our tennis rackets back to campus, hit on the ASU courts.\u00a0 Took a picture of our rental car, a Hyundai Elantra.\u00a0 Nice machine, fast, 40mpg.<\/p>\n

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In the afternoon we found The Bicycle Cellar, a bike rental place near ASU campus in Tempe.\u00a0 Good rental bikes, rode a local bike path and met Jim & Monica, snowbirds from Minneapolis.\u00a0 We rode about 5 miles with them chatting away about their RV life in Mesa, which they love.\u00a0 They’ve been coming here for seven years.\u00a0 They have a 5th<\/sup> wheel and spend 5 months down here in Monte Vista RV park.\u00a0 Monte Vista has 10 championship level tennis courts, leagues, workout facilities, pool, etc.\u00a0 We did check out a couple of RV parks in Tempe and Scottsdale and got some rental info.<\/p>\n

Ate at Jalisco\u2019s, a very authentic (ie, no one there spoke English) Mex joint with good tacos and rellenos.<\/p>\n

On Sunday we met up with old friend Barb McNichol, from Colorado – now residing in Tucson.\u00a0 In two hours we could barely catch up, so we drove over to the fancy resort hotel The Phoenician to walk the grounds.\u00a0 They managed there to have both the best cactus garden around, and to also abuse the usage of water, all at the same time.<\/p>\n

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Monday morning we drove the 130 miles north to Sedona.\u00a0 For those who aren’t familiar, Sedona is located in a huge, high desert plain dotted with some of the most spectacular rock formations imaginable. And not just a few.\u00a0 They seem to go on forever.<\/p>\n

We checked in at the ranger station south of town for hiking maps and suggestions, and the camera started clicking.<\/p>\n

Our Motel was the Bell Rock Resort in Oak Creek Village, about 6 miles south of central Sedona.\u00a0 Nice place with pool and hot tub, good bed.\u00a0 We hiked the Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte loop that same afternoon, just a mile from our motel, gorgeous hike on a cloudy day. A storm had blown through and fast moving clouds were still in evidence. As opposed to crystal blue skies, these clouds made for some interesting photography.<\/p>\n

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Then on to Uptown Sedona, a six mile drive.\u00a0 Spectacular rock formations flew at us on the way.\u00a0 In desperation I started taking photos out the car window. We had a drink overlooking the canyon, best view in the city.\u00a0 Walked nearby to a restaurant for a really good Kobe burger.<\/p>\n

Sedona is parts pure tourist destination, but it also has some “real” neighborhoods, and real shopping areas.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday we hit the road, drove SW 17 miles to Cottonwood, a real town, not a tourist destination. As we dropped in altitude from Sedona, the topology quickly changed from semi-verdent high desert to real, bone dry stuff. We checked out an RV site and saw the same Airstream from the day before, in the ranger station. Then five miles onward to Jerome, a former mining town and tourist crossroads that sits perched thousands of feet above Cottonwood on a ledge.<\/p>\n

Jerome was way up there.\u00a0 You could see for a hundred miles.<\/p>\n

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Back to Sedona and an afternoon hike, this one north and west of town.<\/p>\n

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Last day.\u00a0 We drove Cottonwood Canyon to Flagstaff.\u00a0 Very scenic.\u00a0 Dramatic gain in altitude.\u00a0 Stopped at the highest point to look down into a steep canyon.\u00a0 Parking lot sale of traditional Indian jewelry.<\/p>\n

UA-Flagstaff reeked of hipster chic.\u00a0 It was too bad we didn’t have time to stick around, and besides, it was *cold* there.<\/p>\n

We skedaddled back to Sedona for one last hike in warm weather.<\/p>\n

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E&T hit the road for a winter break. We had to burn two tix from Allegiant Air or lose them. They fly straight from Rockford to Mesa Airport.\u00a0 It figures that the first snow storm of the year hammered us on the way down.\u00a0 Grim driving, grim flying.\u00a0 Flight delayed by several hours, but with … Continue reading “Phoenix\/Sedona”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo","category-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/2071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northernloon.net\/travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}