Sedona is beautiful, thank you for sharing!

We were sitting Java Love coffee shop when we heard that they were about to have a poetry reading. I immediately started writing my poem.  I read it. It was fun!  I can’t share the video because as some of you may know I’M NEVER UPLOADING A VIDEO AGAIN!  But here’s my poem for your general amusement.  :)

Java Love by Briana Schultz

Here I sit in the coffee shop. Laptop perched where the internet’s hot. I’ll drink some tea, or a smoothie with Maca, because I don’t actually love the java. We discovered this eclectic spot to hide, with tie-died shirts and pb cookies that must be tried! The stage was set for open poetry night. I wanted to participate so I began to write. We are just passing through these red rocks flaring. Sedona is gorgous, I thank you locals for sharing. Some memories of Sedona will fade as off we shove, but I’ll always remember this cookie from Java Love!

(Cue the finger snapping from all 5 of the very serious “poetry people” with their black berets and depressing poems about lost love and lost souls.)

Sedona was a really wonderful stop for us.  We made 5 new friends, we saw the rings of Saturn, took several hikes, we saw hot air balloons floating by very early in the morning, we…  well, I’ll just start at the beginning.

We pulled through Sedona and went just a touch south to NF525 (National Forest Rd.) to meet up with and boondock with some fellow RV’ers and bloggers that we were excited to meet.  We camped right next to the Our Take on Freedom duo Yair and Ayo and close to Diana and Phil from Life on the Open Road.

Our first morning there, veeeeery early we heard a loud “CUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSHHHHHH”.  With sleepy eyes we rolled over to see a series of hot air balloons landing not far from where we were camped.

Uh.  Okay.  Since it was BEFORE 6:00AM we decided to go back to sleep.  Nope.  Not long after that we learned that we were camped in the space that a specific (and very busy) tour company begins and ends their (twice a day) ATV tour of the local ruins.  They unloaded the 4 wheelers, geared up, went over the “how to’s” with the tourists, then proceeded to do circles around our RV’s for practice.  BLARG!!

Welp, now we’re up.  We spent that first day relaxing and getting to know our new neighbors Ayo and Yair.  After lunch we decided to take a little hike with Phil and Diana also.  We walked 2 miles up the dried riverbed and 2 miles back, leaving poor Henery sore for the next 2 days.  But it was a really nice walk and I had a chance to get to know more about the Jewish faith.  Later that night we went into Sedona where Yair set up his telescope for the masses to check out the rings of Saturn.  It was beyond cool!

One of the main things that I really wanted to do in Sedona was to go to Slide Rock.  We had the chance one afternoon and we met up with our new bff’s Yair and Ayo.  Yair’s brother and sister-in-law, Jon and Andrea (Jandrea from here on out), were visiting Sedona for the week and so we got the chance to slide down the rock with them also.  The water was just above freezing (on the Bree scale) and the rocks left some marks, but all-in-all it was very fun and I’m so glad we did it.  Slide Rock: CHECK!

After sliding a couple times we were invited to Jandrea’s time share for a post slide dinner.  The food was delicious, and the company was even better.  We had a really wonderful time with our 4 new besties (the hot tub didn’t hurt!).  :)  Yair and Ayo left the next day to continue on their path.  We were sad to see them go, but at least we still had Jandrea!  We met up with them a couple days later for dinner at a really delicious pizza place (that let us sleep in the parking lot since we basically shut the place down).  We ate and talked from 6:30 till after 10:00!!  We really loved getting to know them better and can’t wait to make it up to their neck of the woods (NY) to see them again.

We spent the next couple days going into a couple state parks to see some of the “must see’s” and allow ourselves to experience some famous Sedona Vortexes.  Here are some pics from our hikes:

Red Rock Crossing

There are literally thousands of rock cairns at this state park –it is a little freaky and a lot cool.  Rumor has it that part of the State Park fee’s that we had to pay to visit these sites was to break down and remove hundreds of these each year.

Catherdral Rock (below) is probably the most photographed thing in Sedona!

West Fork

We LOVED this hike because you crisscrossed back and forth over the river about 15 times.  We all loved cooling off in the river!

NF525 (where we “lived”)

We did not go to the ruins (a 14 mile hike) but did explore the dried riverbed that was near our boondocking spot.  It was more Parkour! and less of a walk.

We loved our time in Sedona!  Eventually though, we sucked ourselves out of the vortexes and were on our merry way. We are headed to Vegas for the World Series of Poker, but along the way we found ourselves in Kingman, AZ (don’t forget Winona!) and Chloride, AZ. Matt has some cousins here that he/we had never met. Stay tuned for that blog post. :)

Tally Ho and a xoxo!

Breezy