Showing posts with label Sedona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sedona. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

The Road Trip - Sedona Part 2 & The Grand Canyon Journey


Now where were we, before I was so rudely interrupted by being wrenched out of the nice warm climate and thrust back into the frosty dim light of a Scottish winter's day?  Oh yes, Sedona, for round 2...

After we waved good bye to Janice and Joanne, and had shopped til we dropped, we decided to head back to Tlaquepaque to the Oak Creek Brewery, a micro-brewery and pub, which we decided was close enough to the campsite to stagger home to afterwards.  Well, LT and Laura did, I never stagger...

We claimed a spot at the bar, all the better to watch the action and chat to the barman, and also, most importantly, to get an uninterrupted flow of drinks.  We were working our way through the cocktail menu with some pretzels for an afternoon snack:




Thinking that cocktails and a pretzel for dinner wouldn't wholly satisfy us, LT and Laura decided to order a pizza each, where they'd swap half over and take some home for breakfast/lunch the next day, because obviously they needed to experience their student days again or something...  Still, they made great choices, with nice exotic ingredients like artichoke and goat's cheese and, as we discovered in the fridge in the upcoming days, loads and loads of garlic.  About 15 minutes after we'd ordered we were still waiting, but as we were marinating rather nicely in cocktail #2, we weren't terribly bothered, although the barman was very apologetic about it.  Then, in mid conversation, I spotted the pizzas coming.  I nudged LT, who looked up to watch the barman's assistant carrying 2 HUGE pizza pans, and trying to grab hold of the stands that they use for them on the bar.  1 was at bar height, but the other was up above his head, and apparently he hadn't attended either juggling classes or physics classes, because as he reached up to get the 2nd one, the hand with the pizzas tilted backwards, and the pair of them ended up on the floor!  We thought this was hysterically funny, but the barman and the manager were so apologetic that we'd have to wait again that we got both the pizzas and a round of drinks for free!  I suspect yer man was probably in for a fair bit of teasing too, especially as it took him a little while to realise what had happened when Laura asked for our leftovers to be topping side up ;o)

Waiter!  There's a bear in my pizza...

Our next surprise came when we were talking to the yawning barman about 7:30 and saying how he probably had a while yet to work, when he informed us that he was off at 8 as that's when the whole place closed!  I mean really, fancy a bar closing at 8pm!  So it was an early night for us then...

The next morning we nipped back to Tlaquepaque for a quick round of photos:







After which we decided to take the other route out of town to the interstate, except Dick the satnav got lost and took us to Cottonwood, the next town down instead.  Still, nothing lost, we managed to hit the petrol station, Walmart AND a quilt shop, which Laura conveniently found while we were there.  Did I mention we'd also hit the quilt shop on the way out of Sedona?  It was going to be one of those days *sigh*  Oh, and when we got to Flagstaff?  Yeah, more quilt shops there, although 2 weren't where they were meant to be, or Dick got lost again.  We also had lunch in the RV next to a quilt shop - I mean really, how tacky!  (well it cleared space for fry bread for dinner, didn't it? - LT)

FINALLY, we hit the road again after loads and loads of quilty tool bits and a yard or two of fabric (they were old fashioned shops, so very little actual fabric shopping - LT).  Our main stop on the way to the Grand Canyon was Cameron Trading Post.  I mean we had to really, even if Laura hadn't had a fry bread obsession!


This is the dining room there, isn't there some amazing stuff?  We found some new friends, but alas, LT couldn't rescue them all, apparently she didn't have a big enough wallet - hmph!







And here's the infamous fry bread, which, please note, isn't blue this time.  Blue food isn't normal I tell ya!


Defeated...



Thursday, 1 November 2012

The Road Trip - Sedona Part 1

So after days and days and days of trawling around landscapes with lots of red rocks we went to... a town built on red rocks o.O  Really people?!  (Everything for miles is red, suck it up! - LT)  Hmph.  Anyway, we ended up in Sedona which was a nice wee arty crafty town even if it is built on red rocks.

On the way there though we ended up going on a bit of what was Route 66, which is some kind of famous road people like to get excited about.  I didn't find this bit very exciting:


We found those guys hanging out here:


We had to go through Flagstaff, but we had a bit of a nightmare finding and getting into Barnes and Noble there so that Laura could get more books.  It turns out that a big RV crossing the road in front of you will make people stop.  Eventually...  After that we failed to find a quilt shop, so we went for dinner instead.  It turns out Laura had had a sneaky visit here in SLC without us, but this was our first visit of the trip:


And I think it should have been free, don't you agree?:


This is what we had, cinna-stacks:


Then we had to drive to Sedona in the dark down this long windy road.  It turns out that wasn't the road normal people would have gone on, and a couple of locals told us they'd be scared of doing it in a car in the dark never mind an RV, or even in daylight...  Oh well!

The next morning we got up and went shopping, 'cos really that's all they came for.  See, red rocks above the town:


After the girls had shopped and shopped until I was ready to drop, they announced that we were meeting friends for lunch.  We met up with Joanne from Desert Mountain Bear (who brought us a missing package that had meant to come to SS, but didn't get to Phoenix in time for Danny to bring it) and Janice from Booh Bears.  Joanne didn't have any of her award winning bears ready to bring and show us, so she brought us one of her little fairy friends, Fern.  She was nice and playful, but I think Janice's bunny Meeko was trying to box my ears... (it would probably have served you right - LT)


Here I am with Joanne, LT and Janice after lunch:


Joanne took us to quite the treasure trove after lunch and we had fun hunting for some crystals too, but then they had to go home for dinner :o(  We had fun making some new friends around town too...





I got to make some noise too.  There were others playing on the other ones but they weren't as tuneful as me...


Phew, that was quite a long day but we had quite a big night too, and I'll tell you about that another time...