The main things I have done this past week have been hiking, eating, and walking around downtown Sedona. In the town of Sedona itself, there is not too much to do, but once you get out into the canyons there are endless possibilities. The first hike I took was "Devils Bridge" with Mom, Dad, and Liz. I had done this one before on prior visits, but its a nice short one to build the hiking endurance back up, and for what it lacks in length, it makes up in the scenery. At the end of the hike you come upon a natural bridge suspended above a portion of the canyon that you can walk out onto.
When out on the bridge you feel a little like you are over the edge of the canyon, but for those of us who are slightly afraid of heights, it can make your knees a little weak. Regardless of fears, Liz and I walked out onto it and were then followed by Dad. Mom stayed on the other side to take pictures, but not from a lack of courage. Its also really cool to be able to sit on the edge of part of the more solid areas of the bridge and look out into the canyon below. You really feel like you are on the edge of the world... until you look behind you, and that feeling fades. Getting up from that position is a little scary for those of us who do not like heights.
We also hiked out around where my parents live, on "Brins Mesa" trail. It takes you up to the mesa which over-looks most of Sedona, and it has some of the most beautiful panoramic views. The most recent forest fire here took out a lot of the forestry on the mesa, but a lot of it is starting to grow back. It is a really interesting contrast to see the burnt trees next to a healthy full tree of the same type. The fire litterally stopped on the edge of the mesa we were standing on. Dad says the he thinks the direction of the wind out of the canyon below and up onto the mesa stopped the fire. When you look below you, there is little to no damage at all, but when you look back across the mesa, you can still see some damage mainly on the trees. The mesa itself also has a really wide variety of brush that is so different from that inside the canyon. You don't see a lot of short green grass in Sedona, so seeing the mesa with grass you'd see back east on it was surprising. The mix of that type of grass and cacti is quite interesting. You can also walk across the mesa and see out onto the other side of the canyon, but we had started the hike a little too late to be able to do that before the sun set. I had never done this hike, so it was really nice to be able to see a view of Sedona that I had never seen.
On a different note, the food here is wonderful. The change in food alone has helped a lot with my Crohns. At first it was hard cause of the time change and the fact that my body was not used to eating at these times, but once it got some good food in it at consistent times, it was much happier. There is a really great natural food store not far from the house called New Frontiers that has really great organic foods that are really easy on my stomach. (The store is actually also mentioned in the book that Coach Burke gave me!) I have been able to eat things that I wasn't able to before without issue. It is amazing what eating more non-processed foods will do to help. We also got to go out to dinner for my Dad's birthday on Friday which was really nice.
Even though there is not much to do in town, it is fun to walk around and pop in and out of the little stores and see what kind of things are in them. The fun dies down a bit since a lot of the stores are more touristy and all start to blend into each other. The best part though is the people watching. Since downtown Sedona draws a lot of tourists, the differing types of people are so much fun. The locals can also be quite interesting, so just walking around can be a lot of fun. One place that will never get old downtown is the fudge place. There is a store that makes its own fudge and candy that is to die for. They use the same recipe that they did when they first opened, and you can watch them make the fudge fresh. You can also smell the fudge a few stores down, and the smell itself is wonderful.
Things are going pretty well here all in all. It was really nice to have Liz here this past weekend, and be able to do lots of fun things around Sedona with her. This week I am going to try and do at least one of the things out of the book. There is a hike at Slide Rock State Park from the book that ends in a natural water slide, and that sounds like a lot of fun. I just have to find a nice warm day (which shouldn't be hard).
I miss you all, and hope all is well back east.
p.s the Flyers are going to the playoffs!! Yay!! (that makes things good back east)
love,
Nora
