Road Trip in Sedona

Last weekend we enjoyed a long weekend in Sedona, Arizona.  We chose Arizona because it was warmer than Reno and Sedona because it is surrounded by red rocks.  Beyond that we didn't have any real plans, so we drove north from Phoenix and stopped at a rest stop half way to Sedona, checked out the visitor information and planned our weekend from there.  

The key to a good road trip is taking lots of pictures so you can remember where you've been.  We started out having lunch in the old mining town of Jerome at the Haunted Burger.  Calvin stopped here on a big bike ride a few years ago and loved the view from the deck.  Lunch wasn't bad either.

We arrived to a room with a view in Sedona. 

The area around Sedona is dotted with ruins left by the Sinagua people who inhabited the area roughly between 1100 and 1300 AD, so I dragged Calvin through a lot of ruins.  If you look closely  you can see some about in the middle of the photo.

These home sites in Walnut Canyon were not large, but it is supposed that the Sinagua were not very tall.

Walnut Canyon is near Flagstaff.  On our way back we came to a stretch of historic Route 66.  I've been trying to talk Calvin into a road trip on Route 66 for years, and here we are headed west.  We even had lunch at a Route 66 diner.

After lunch we took a hike in the West fork of Oak Creek Canyon which was absolutely spectacular.

Saturday we visited the Palatki and Honanki ruins which also had rock art, although was not as impressive as some we've seen, but I liked the "pigtail girl."

This interesting panel is possibly a sun calendar.  The wavy line might represent the mountain range opposite. There are little black triangles under certain peaks which correspond with where the sun rises on the Soltice and Equinox.  Kind of like the blue triangles on our bedroom wall marking the location of sunrise throughout the year.

This is the range across the way.  The volunteer said that the dots match up with observed sunrise here.

I liked these ruins because they are in the red rock, and they are two story town homes.

The Sedona International film festival started Saturday evening, so we took in a showing of Redwood Highway, which I enjoyed, but Calvin thought the best part of the evening was the cookies and cupcakes they gave out for opening night after the show.

Valentine Cookies

I don't think that we observe a lot of family traditions, but I have a personal tradition that I have enjoyed since I was a child.  I like to have frosted sugar cookies on Valentine's Day.  I remember a Valentine's Day when I was, I think, in the second grade.  My mother was "room mother" for our class and back then that meant baking a batch of cookies for class parties.  She had made frosted sugar cookies for Valentine's Day and for some reason she trusted a 7 year old to deliver a box of cookies to school.  But on the way to the school bus I either tripped and dropped the box of cookies, or I just dropped the box of cookies, and some of them broke.  I had to go back home and confess the tragedy.  My mother didn't scold, or point out that I hadn't been careful.  She just replaced the broken cookies and sent me on my way again.  And from that day, Valentine's Day is not complete for me without frosted sugar cookies.

My tradition is to use my mother's sugar cookie recipe, which makes a fairly crisp cookie which, I must say in defense of my seven year old self, does break easily.  And I use what I hope is her mother, Libbie Brown's, cookie cutter.  I picked it up the summer Calvin and I lived in the house of my grandparents Brown.  That was more than a decade after she died, but I like to think it was hers even if it wasn't.

I started making my own cookies and sharing them as Valentines in high school. My cookies always have a "conversation heart" in the middle of pink peppermint frosting.  I don't make cookies every year, but for over forty years pink frosted sugar cookies are my own special Valentine's Day tradition.

Winter weekend

We have had a delightfully warm and dry winter, which is great if you want to get out and work in the garden, but not so great if you want to drink water next summer.  This weekend the high pressure moved out and the snow moved in, so instead of gardening and bicycling we had some winter fun.  We had a little snow at our house Thursday morning, but there was enough snow Friday morning to send Peter and Calvin to Mt Rose for first tracks.

Friday evening we went with friends to Truckee for dinner and then on to Northstar Village to view the snow sculptures.  The sculptures were fun, but not awe inspiring. And it was really cold, so we didn't stay long.  My favorite was the whale rider by the Yukon Canada team.

The sculptures were still works in progress.

A couple more

Saturday morning Calvin and I went to Mt Rose with the rest of the world for a few runs.  We actually had to wait in lines for the lift!  But the skiing was the best of the season (which is not high praise) so it was fun.  After Mt. Rose we met up with Peter and Roque for some ski touring/snow shoeing on the Tahoe Meadows.  Calvin and I bought new touring skis from a local ski store that is going out of business.  The skis are great on the flat, but not so great going up and down hill. But it looks like they will be a lot of fun.

At the lunch stop I traded skis for snowshoes with Roque and reaffirmed my belief that snowshoes are not speedy mode of winter transportation. And not all that fun.

So now that we have had winter, spring is more that welcome to arrive, as long as it brings a lot of rain with it.