{"id":252,"date":"2017-04-02T07:25:55","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T07:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/?p=252"},"modified":"2018-05-09T00:03:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T00:03:36","slug":"in-the-land-of-cathedrals-bells-yogi-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/02\/in-the-land-of-cathedrals-bells-yogi-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"IN THE LAND OF CATHEDRALS"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wanted to spend as much time with my friends in Phoenix as I could, which meant\u00a0I ended up driving from Phoenix to Sedona at night. It was a two-hour drive through some mountains, but any notable scenery was lost in\u00a0the darkness. As I got closer to the city, my AirBnB hosts told me to follow their directions because apparently GPS doesn’t register their address. Moreover, Sedona is an official Dark Sky community (yes, that is an official designation) which means\u00a0they preserve\u00a0the darkness of the night sky through strict\u00a0lighting codes and ordinances. Needless to say, it was VERY\u00a0DARK,\u00a0I was without GPS navigation, and I was trying\u00a0to remember whether or not\u00a0I knew how to set up the tent I had brought with me. Much to my relief, I soon found the place, and my lovely hosts got me settled in. They said I came into Sedona the best way, in the dark, and that I should go up on their roof deck in the morning to watch the sunrise. So I did.<\/p>\n

\"\"
View from the roof deck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I got up at 5:00 AM, excited that I finally got to wear\u00a0one of the\u00a0wool sweaters I had packed, and in the pitch black, I climbed the spiral staircase to the roof deck with the aid of my iPhone flashlight. The sky was exploding with stars – more than I’d ever seen on\u00a0my camping trips\u00a0in the Sierras! I sat there staring at the stars, planes, and satellites streak by, and I wondered if I\u00a0would be able to see any rock\u00a0formations or if they would be too\u00a0far off\u00a0in the distance.\u00a0And then, as the sun began to rise, my head exploded.<\/p>\n

I could see\u00a0the outlines of a few\u00a0formations, and then (cue full orchestra swell!) there they were: red, majestic, and seemingly just\u00a0beyond the trees\u00a0of the property.\u00a0As the sun rose higher, the sight of them\u00a0continued to take my breath away. \u00a0I\u00a0quickly got dressed and drove up the Sedona highway, turning into every stop, getting out and hiking in on a few trails to get a closer look. \u00a0It was as if my eyes couldn’t get enough. I audibly gasped at the beauty, and a few people on the trail with me simply\u00a0nodded with understanding. I felt embarrassed, almost ashamed, that all I had was my iPhone camera with which to capture\u00a0such beauty, while others had fancy cameras with multiple lenses. .\u00a0But you would have to try pretty hard to take a bad picture in Sedona.<\/p>\n

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MINI enjoying the view<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, Coffee Pot Rock, Courthouse Butte (and I could go on and on). As I drove and hiked the paths, I was\u00a0quite stricken\u00a0with emotion. The beauty was overwhelming. When I saw the Grand Canyon the first time, I was awestruck, too, but mostly because the Grand Canyon had been\u00a0so iconic in pictures and film, and I had\u00a0to keep telling myself that I was not looking at a photo but seeing it\u00a0with my own eyes! But Sedona was different. The amazement wasn’t merely in my eyes. For lack of a better word, it was in my soul<\/em>. I kept thanking God for this beautiful place, that I could be here on this trip to experience His handiwork, that I had good working eyeballs so I could SEE\u00a0these beautiful formations. I was\u00a0moved to tears over and over, and I can’t explain exactly why.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Chapel of the Holy Cross – a church built into the rock formation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Scariest – and Pinkest – Ride of My Life<\/strong>
\nWhen I go to new cities, I try to go\u00a0on walking tours because I\u00a0hear great stories of the history of the place told through the unique perspective\u00a0of the guide. Some balk and roll their eyes, saying, “Tours are for\u00a0nerdy tourists,” to which I say, “Well, I AM that nerdy\u00a0tourist.” The walking tours I’ve taken over the years in various\u00a0cities have made each of those trips unforgettable. However, in Sedona, there really aren’t any walking tours.<\/p>\n

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Yogi Bear leaning up\u00a0against a rock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The town is small, full of clothing shops,\u00a0Native American art, and a mesmerizing amount\u00a0of spiritual new age merchandise. The only tours really are Jeep tours, since the place is so spread out. \u00a0I picked a tour with the only company allowed to drive back into and onto the rocks. They work with the Parks Service to maintain and care for the trails and wildlife, so they are the only vehicles with permits to go out on the trails.. These Jeeps were seriously retrofitted and seriously\u00a0pink. I was on\u00a0a sunrise tour, and our driver\/guide, ReRe (pronounced ray-ray), was awesome.\u00a0She told us that\u00a0Sedona was named after the\u00a0the wife of the town’s first postmaster (yup, the mailman), that an\u00a0overabundance of iron in the sandstone found only in the Sedona region is\u00a0what makes the rocks red, and that nearly every flora and fauna from prickly pear to tree bark can be and is used in the treatment of all kinds of illnesses (“We are driving through a pharmacy!”).<\/p>\n

\"\"
Since I was a solo on the tour, ReRe suggested for me this\u00a0fun panorama.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ReRe drove us over hill and dale out to the edge of the Broken Arrow trail. Then we commenced\u00a0the photo shoot. ReRe took pictures for\u00a0us, telling us the best place to stand and which iPhone filter to use, and we did a few fun ones like jump shots and panoramas. Of all the tour guides we encountered, no one took as much care with us as did ReRe. She said, “Why take photos just to remember Sedona? Take photos\u00a0that you want to frame<\/em>!” She was the perfect\u00a0guide and a very caring\u00a0person. But\u00a0then … she tried to kill us.<\/p>\n

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My group \u2022 Driving straight up the rock \u2022 Anniversary pic for fellow Jeep couple\u00a0 \u2022 Driving down a “rock staircase”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I said the Pink Jeep Tour company was allowed to drive into and onto the rocks, I mean ONTO ONTO the rocks. The photos can’t convey the angles or the sensations of sitting in the front seat as the Jeep went straight up a rock (seriously – all we saw was sky over the pink hood) and then down a steep rock face (where even the men cried out a bit in\u00a0fear). Beside the gorgeous up-close scenery, riding in the\u00a0Jeep tour was like being on a roller coaster, only we weren’t safely clamped down to rails, which made the tour, shall we say… exhilerating?\u00a0<\/em>(because to say it made me nearly crap my\u00a0pants would be crass). I was glad I took it on an empty stomach.<\/p>\n

Alas, my 2.5 days in Sedona ended too quickly, and I am determined to come back. As I packed up, bid adieu to my wonderful AirBnB hosts, and drove out of Sedona, I felt\u00a0again some of the emotion from that first day and wondered what it was that had touched me so much. \u00a0I remembered what\u00a0ReRe had said on our\u00a0tour. She said, “The Grand Canyon is great, but Sedona is better. At\u00a0the former, you’re always looking down, but in Sedona, you’re always looking up!”\u00a0I think that was it. As I drove north, I looked one last time at the majestic\u00a0rocks, glowing red in the sun, pointing us all\u00a0to the Creator.<\/p>\n

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.
\nThrough everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities,
\nHis eternal power and divine nature…\u00a0-Romans 1:20<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to spend as much time with my friends in Phoenix as I could, which meant\u00a0I ended up driving from Phoenix to Sedona at night. It was a two-hour drive through some mountains, but any notable scenery was lost in\u00a0the darkness. As I got closer to the city, my AirBnB hosts told me to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-grand-canyon-state","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/storygirlontheroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/FullSizeRender-24-e1492716270903.jpg?fit=1978%2C1073&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8xsVh-44","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}