Today we headed for Sedona, Arizona - the beautiful red rock
land of retirees and tourism. Unfortunately there was a wildfire that blocked
both the road we planned to come into Sedona on and the swimming hole we
planned to play at. No problem, the blockage kind of worked in our favor; we
took a bumpy dirt road called Schnebly Pass into town instead, and found a
beautiful swimming spot along Oak Creek called Grasshopper Point. Schnebly pass
was full of gorgeous views. We passed a lot of pink jeep tourists (they really
are pink jeeps that cruise around giving tours) and stopped a few times to hop
around and explore. When we made it to Sedona we stopped at the visitor center
to find some info and reroute at bit. Sedona’s touristy feel was sort of fun!
They had xylophone-like pipes and mallets for music making at the visitor
center and other places around town.
We found a swimming hole still open and hiked a short hike
down to it. Because Slide Rock (the popular spot in the town) was closed,
Grasshopper point had quite a few river enthusiasts but we made some friends
and had a blast! The rocks surrounding the hole made great for jumping. Nate
had some flipping competition from some seventy-something guy who was doing
backflips and gainers from the 20 foot ledge-awesome! We stayed and played for
a while until it was time to find a place to make camp. We drove along
backroads in search of some dispersed camping all afternoon and found some
ruins at the base of the cliffs, some wild pigs that we chased around for a
while (I think we had more fun here than the real life Pumbaas did-haha), and
Angels Valley Spiritual Retreat (we stayed on our side of the rainbow painted
bridge, but we did catch a picture or two). Finally, we found the perfect spot
to stay: a little riverside oasis full of shade, privacy, and water. We pulled
the truck into camp, made dinner, and called it an early
night.
No comments:
Post a Comment