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.