The Red Rocks of Sedona, AZ– Plus Quick Detour To The Grand Canyon

June 4, 2018

Sedona, Arizona–A small new-age town south of Flagstaff and about and hour and a half southeast of the Grand Canyon. It sits in the Coconino National Forest and is known for its red rocks. My husband and I took a long weekend trip to Sedona and buzzed up for a quick first visit to the Grand Canyon. We didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg so we looked for a highly rated but inexpensive hotel to stay in or around Sedona to use as our home base.We found the Wildflower Inn just outside of Sedona proper. It was rated four out of five stars (or 8.2 out of 10) and had a beautiful view of a large red rock formation. The room was very clean and modern looking. It also offered delicious breakfast muffins and coffee free of charge.

How can you beat this view out the window for under $100 a night?

Sedona is well known for it arts community. Many artists live and work in Sedona. It’s history dates back to about 9000 BC with pre-historic Archaic people. For more of the actual history click here for the wikipedia page. Suffice to say people have been living in this area for a long time. It is a huge tourist town now but retains its amazing geography. Many new age spiritualists have come to be associated with the area due to what are called “spiritual vortices” believed to be grouped are certain rock formation such as: Bell Rock, Airport Mesa and Cathedral Rock.

We wanted to really see the nature so we decided to do one of those Pink Jeep Touring trips. We chose the longest trip of three hours. It took us up the mountains rim and back down. What we didn’t realized was that there were no roads what-so-ever! I should have of course but wow! How can you say sore back? However, it was so fun. We ended in a jeep with just the two of us. Often, there are other tourists with you in a jeep but we got lucky. No one else chose that tour. Hmmmm, I wonder why?

Our tour guide, AKA driver, was a hoot and very friendly. He let me sit in the drivers seat but not drive …thank goodness. Some of the trails–off roads–we took very straight up or simply driving over boulders. I can’t really say enough about the red rocks. They were simply majestic and awe inspiring.

We got to sit at the top of rocks and look down to amazing views.

We got back and had a snack as we walked around town. There are many little shops that sell crystals, books and other metaphysical items as well as readings and tours to vortexes. I don’t really get into that sort of stuff but I did purchase a couple of cool things and we had some great food with the little guy at the beginning of this blog looking over us. Love it!

The second day there we went hiking along some trails near our hotel and we found water…..in Arizona! It was so nice. It was October when we went so it was still warm and the water was very cool. We enjoyed the hiking and wading in the water. We picnicked by a stream and had a great time people watching others along the trail. It was a great day being out in the nature.

On day three, we took off for the less than 2 hour trip up to the Grand Canyon. My husband had been there before but it was my first trip. We didn’t plan on hiking or camping (saving that for another time) so we just wanted to view the sights from above and walk around a bit. We ended up walking the south rim for a while and stopping at all the vistas to learn about the canyon. We stopped at all the informational places we could find and had dinner at one of the restaurants along the rim. We did hike down one of the trails for about a half mile…..I did say down. I wasn’t sure that if we went down further whether I would be able to climb back up. Haha. I did fine though. This is truly a wonder of the world. I felt very small when I considered that this place is millions of year old. Someday, before I am too old, I want to come back and actually go down to the bottom of the canyon and maybe go rafting on the Colorado River.