Day Three -

Sedona to Grand Canyon

Woke up in one of the most unique and exquisite places on this earth.

I have heard about Sedona from friends as being a major destination to experience but, as usual - and this is not news - you have to GET there to really have any idea what all the fuss is about.

So I won't waste a lot of ink trying to describe it. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure I
COULD explain the feeling that is there in words.

The scenery is definitely visually pleasing - the way the town is set down in this valley with amazing red rock formations jutting up to essentially surround the town on three sides. Shapes, colors, sizes - an improvisation in stone.

There is a lot of iron ore in the rocks and as a result there is a very strong magnetic field emanating from this particular spot on earth. This is how I understand it anyway.

And so, when you hear the new-agers describing the "energy vortex" there, it is not just all in the mind. There is something to it.

All I can tell you is that the place looked real purty and is at around 4,300 ft elevation, so the air is very fresh and clean and it definitely did have a "vibe". It is a crime to have to enter and leave it in less than 24 hours, but I feel lucky to see what I did.

And we had some Sedona good fortune. On the way to breakfast this morning, a man working a stall for the Hyatt stopped us and asked if we wanted to sit through a time-share sales pitch for an hour and a half.

Uhh...

"We have nice rewards for doing so", he assured us.

So to cut to the chase, that is exactly what we did and for our time we were given two vouchers for a helicopter ride over the town. I have not been on a heli since my time in Hawaii in the 90's, so it was an easy sell.


It was an absolutely great way to spend our day there.

My bud Dave Stryker told me I had to hit a pizza/salad place there called Picazzo's. Killin'. Gourmet pizza. Go figure.

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The day expiring, it was time to leave Sedona and get up to the Canyon.

Well, if Sedona defies proper explanation, I need not try to waste mortal words on this most sublime of sights.

If you have seen the Canyon, you know what I'm talking about.

If you haven't, please try and see it at least once in your life. If you can hike down into it (I haven't), so much the better.

Words don't do it justice, pictures can't do it justice, even an IMAX movie has a hard time communicating the scale and majesty of this mind-boggling mile deep gash in the ground.

They think the Canyon itself is around 6 million years in the making. But the rock - at the bottom - that it exposes is over one BILLION years old. That is a fifth of the age of the earth! That is ridiculous. And the layers upon layers of rock are just sitting there for the viewing - for the mulling, if you are so inclined.

We rolled in just as the sun was about setting - had a little over an hour of daylight left, so the shadows were getting long but the point still got across. Weak in the knees - literally - I was the first time I saw it years ago. Equally impressive today.


Staying at a lodge right on the South Rim tonight.

Again, precious little time. Must leave tomorrow by around noon to start making some real time to the East Coast.

What a country.

Day Two -

Tucson to Sedona

Not a lot of time in Tucson, but it seemed to be a cool little-ish town.

I was surprised how much it seemed to sprawl, considering it did have a small city/town feel. These desert towns have their own challenges, and in a way it is surprising that they are able to grow and flourish such as they do.

Tucson is quite far south - only an hour away from the Mexican border at Nogales - and you can tell that it has been there for a long, long time (by New World standards at least)

(Wow - I just looked into it a little bit and found out the history of this area goes back much further than I expected: almost 2,000 years - or more - as far as the indigenous people are concerned. The town itself was officially founded in 1775 with stuff going on a hundred years before that) If interested:

Tucson Brief History

I really like towns and cities that don't just say, "Gleaming Glass Boxes Brought To You Courtesy of Corporate America", but embrace and celebrate their history - that realize what is interesting about them is as much a product of what they WERE as much as what they are becoming.

I fear that as the pace of change in this society continues to accelerate, people will care less and less about the life that preceded cel phones or the internal combustion engine simply because it resembles very little of what we do day to day.

How people could not be fascinated by the process of how things came to be the way they are is beyond me. It is a very clear line - meandering many times with many side trips yes - but with key pieces of information one can trace the progression of there to here.

I don't know how we can have any sense of who we are without trying to uncover some of these rocks.

I guess this comes - if it comes at all - with more time spent on the planet.

When I was a teenager growing up in the Kansas City suburb of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, I really didn't give a crap about "Old Shawnee Town" not far from where I lived that told about the history of the the Shawnee Indians and the early settlers that came to the area in the 1830's. It was just dusty history, bearing no resemblance to my life or my friend's lives. Who cares?

Now, years later, having traveled a good amount both domestically and abroad, I can't stop thinking about all the people, stories, lives that HAD to happen to pave the road to my teenage obliviousness in that Kansas town.

Hanging in Shawnee last week, I wanted to find out all I could about exactly WHERE these various historical events took place in relation to the modern layout of the town - which continues to change and evolve. I couldn't get enough.

And I will say that the town has done a pretty darn good job both with a little museum and historical markers, to NOT let it just get paved over and forgotten.

But if you ask any of the PEOPLE who live there, to say nothing of the people that don't - if they know or care about any of this they would probably stare at you blankly. This is not and indictment of the people per se'. We are too busy running to and from our jobs to earn our paychecks to send to those Gleaming Glass Boxes of Corporate America to really care what happened here 50 or 100 or 150 years ago. I am probably just stating the obvious at this point.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut: "And so it goes".

More on Sedona tomorrow.

I can say this: it is amazing here.

Cross Country

Day One -

Oxnard to Tucson

We left Oxnard and drove the gorgeous PCH - Pacific Coast Highway - south along the coast and thru Malibu and then Santa Monica.

Sparkling, perfect day.

At Santa Monica we got on I-10 East and started back across this amazing country in earnest.

It took a while (of course) to get out of the eastward sprawl of L.A.

We passed the largest wind farm I have ever witnessed just outside of Palm Springs.

Through the desert and finally across the seemingly inconsequential Colorado River (the Grand Canyon has a thing or two to say about how inconsequential it is!) at Blythe and on into Arizona. Immediately started the grade up and into a slightly different looking landscape.

The desert has it's own thing altogether. It exists at the extreme of climate and conditions, and yet life - in it's particular forms of cactus, scrub brush, critters hiding out during the day, etc etc - finds it's way to expression.

Made it into Tucson in time for a great Mexican dinner with friends.

Drinks after at a funny, kitchy Tiki Bar, right out of an episode of Hawaii 5-0 (it has been here over 45 years).

Laughs, good times.

Lovin' this.

More tomorrow

Relaxin' (Near) Camarillo

I flew in to LAX today and wound up going to check out the famous "Camarillo State Mental Hospital".

This was the place where Charlie Parker was committed, in 1946, for 6 months to treat his heroin addiction. The fantastic tune "Relaxin' At Camarillo" resulted.

The hospital was closed in 1997 and is now the campus of California State University, Channel Islands.

This follows my trip to Kansas City last week (congratulations Graduate Rachel!) where I got a chance to visit the grave site of my favorite musician - the self-same Charlie Parker - and pay my respects. I had the shakuhachi with me both times and blew a little Sui Zen each time. (Pic's to follow)

Following him around, trying to piece it all back together.

R.I.P. Sydney Pollack

And in totally unrelated news, I just noticed that one of my favorite directors/actors passed away today near Malibu - not far from where I am right now.

Come and go. Come and go.