Leaving Sedona

Had a weird day-- went down to check out Cottonwood again and had a similar non-reaction to it again this time. I'm sure it's a nice enough town, but we'd need a tour guide or some such in order to appreciate it more. If we knew anybody there they could probably point out a nice cafe, a park, a walk by the creek maybe. We just don't know our way around there.

So from there I thought we'd visit Jerome again: a former ghost town/copper mining town built on a very steep hillside above cottonwood. We got some trippy photos there last time because the town seems to be built on the "it hasn't fallen down yet (not for awhile anyway)" principle. But my plan this time was to drive all the way through it, then turn around and come back, park, and walk around. We caught some pretty scenery just on the far end of town so we thought we'd drive just a little further up the steep and windy grade. Hmmm, not much more scenery-- then Sheryl looked at a map and said, "I'm sure it's not that far to Prescott, then we can loop back on a flatter road." OK, I'm paraphrasing, but we ended up all day in the car and never saw Jerome again. Should have turned around when I felt like turning around. That, or commit to checking out Prescott which we probably came just near to the edge of before turning around.

End of the day we were on the far end of Sedona back at Boynton Canyon. Probably not a good idea to climb Doe Rock near sunset with somebody who is a bit afraid of heights and especially hates descending a steep rocky hill. Yeah, we got a few pictures but it wasn't worth that moment at the peak when I looked behind me to see just how slowly Sheryl was creeping along down those rocks, then I looked at my watch, at the setting sun, and wondered how much fun it was going to be rushing down the grade just to try to find a flashlight so I could come back up and rescue Sher. I think it was even less fun for Sheryl. Well it didn't go that way, we got to the bottom before dark, barely. Man, we are such novices at this stuff. But hey, the adrenaline made my severe allergy symptoms go away for awhile. I have not mentioned it before, but I appear to be acutely allergic to Arizona. They tell me it's the Juniper trees, could be the red dust, I don't know. I've never sneezed so much nor blown my nose so many times over a period of several weeks. We're going to work on it, have beaten allergies before through counseling and healing work.

So twice in one day, partway up the hill would have been just fine, going the whole way simply was not worth it. OK, we're at the freakin top, it's almost dark, the view isn't much better from here so whoop-de- dee. Also, would rather have walked around Jerome than sat in the car all day. Between Sher and I we've been getting our signals crossed lately. We're thinking this little trip is about over.

Also, we've been doing the research and finding that some 2/3 of the people who work in Sedona, live outside of Sedona because it's just too expensive and I think that puts us off just a bit. You know, everybody here is so nice and the place is beautiful but we are unfocused in our shared intent-- don't really know quite what we are doing here and so it appear to be time to go back to Snowflake, reunite with family and our cats and think things through.