Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Day 30 - Sedona to The Grand canyon

We took a day off from blogging our daily adventures. We had a great time yesterday, but we were pretty darned tired by the time we got back to our hotel at night.

When I woke up in the morning I’d decided that I really needed to get out for a run, for two reasons. Firstly; everyone at home was running Angus Glen, the last great run of the season, or, Bern and Steve were running New York. I would have loved to have been with the gang at either event... The second reason was, if I didn’t get out and run soon, I was going to have to roll myself around the next race course.


I went out for a one hour run. I felt OK for most of it, although I could tell I was running slower than I wanted to be running. I don’t know if that’s because the first half hour was all uphill, or if it was because Sedona is about 4000 feet above sea level, or a combination of the two. (I’m sure it’s not because I hadn’t run for two weeks!). Whatever the reason, I ended up only doing 8.6k in 55 minutes. Maybe I need to start running regularly again and worry about speed later.


I got back to the hotel, grabbed a quick shower and headed out for a quick breakfast with Lynne. We wanted to spend the day exploring the vortexes around Sedona. These vortexes are supposed to be area’s of great spiritual energy.  We’d been out to one vortex the night before. I must admit I felt very energized myself, but I don’t know if that was just the excitement of the adventure or what.


We headed out after breakfast to where I had pinpointed one vortex in the GPS. We drove to where we were told it was a 30 minute walk to the top of the point. We could see where we wanted to go, and off we went. The path through the forest and up the mountain side seemed to head off course to us, but we kept going. We just figured the path would bend back to the vortex at some point. About an hour later, we decided we’d made a wrong turn somewhere, and headed back. That first trek was a bit disappointing in that is skirted an exclusive estate home development. We kept feeling like we were off in the wilderness, but then we’d run into a fence or see some houses through the forest.

We got back to the car and decided we needed water and some food would be good too! We drove back to the hotel, grabbed some lunch, filled my Nathan water belt with water and E-Load and headed back out in quest of the vortex again.  We picked the other trail this time. It didn’t feel right either, but we didn’t see any other choice.

Another hour later, after a great walk along this trail, we decided that God just doesn’t want us to find this vortex and we’d head back and forget about this one. By now it was 3 in the afternoon; the sun was beating down on us. We were tired, hungry and getting very low on water.  A short distance from the car, some guy stopped and asked us if we’d been up to the vortex. We told him our story and he said. “It’s only 10 minutes from here, come with me and I’ll show you the way”

We followed old George along the trail and turned at the elusive path that we hadn’t seen. We was great, telling us about different trees and cactus types.  He showed us plants that could be boiled and drank as tea and explained different rock formations to us as he led us up to the vortex. He left us shortly after we reached the summit. I don’t know that I felt any sort of supernatural energy, but I sure felt relief that we’d finally reached the summit and, even more important, we could sit down in the shade and relax for a bit! The scenery all day was amazing. It doesn’t matter how many beautiful vistas there are, we just don’t get tired of them.

We headed back to the hotel and rested a bit before heading back out to the Vortex we’d visited the night before. We wanted to be there early enough to get a good spot to watch the sun go down and get some good pictures. About 200 – 300 other people had the same idea. I’d set up the tripod, but every time I got a good shot lined up, some bonehead would stand between my camera and whatever I was trying to get a picture of. It was cool watching the sun go down from high up on this peak though. We headed out for pizza after that and went to bed early.

This morning, while we were packing up the car, the people in the car parked in front of ours said hello and commented on the Ontario license plates. It ended up that they were from Huntsville. It’s amazing how many people from near home that we’ve run into.
We drove out to Flagstaff and then on to the Grand canyon from there. The canyon is very cool. There certainly are some spots that are scary as hell to look down from. It’s amazing to look at all the layers in the canyon sides and read about them at the museum. We walked along the paved path thinking that, this sure isn’t the rugged hiking we’d done the day before.

All of a sudden, a mountain goat came up over from climbing up one of the cliffs. There it was, 15 feet in front of us, just standing and looking at us. We took pictures fast and furiously. Then another came over. Then another and another. In short order there were six or seven of these animals all together, almost close enough to reach out and touch. They walked across the path and into the trees on the other side of the path. We took moiré pictures. More folks walked along the path and we pointed out the animals to them. All of a sudden, the Ram appeared. His horns were much bigger than the other. He looked about, and ran off immediately. The others followed as quickly, taking up on his lead. I found that encounter even more thrilling than the view of the canyon itself.

We drove back to Flagstaff for the night. We’re off to spend a couple of days with Ron and Bev in Green Valley before we head off into Mexico. Our Mexico destination is Lake Chapala. Lynne found the place on-line a couple of weeks ago. We’re going to stop there and spend some time. If it turns out to be anything like we hear it is, we’ll probably stay there through Christmas so that we have a place for Jordan to come visit over the holidays.

So far, we’ve traveled just a bit over 8700k in the 30 days that we’ve been on the road.  As we get ready to head into Mexico, I feel a bit like the traveling vacation is over, and the unknown adventure is about to start. I think it’s going to be a bit more work from the border on!

1 comment:

  1. Great story, great photo's. Really enjoyed this one, guys!

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