Done with the grand Canyon - on to Sedona!

I never got used to the time difference between NY and AZ – which I guess is good since our vacation is almost over – so I was up early enough to catch the sun’s first ray on the cliffs of the Grand Canyon one last time. 

Then we were off to Sedona, our last stop.  We took 64 east, so that we could stop on the way at the many viewing areas of the Grand Canyon, and I could literally post hundreds of pictures, one more breathtaking than the other….  We could have spent the entire day, just going “ooh” and “aahhh”, on our way out…

So here are the 2 last ones: 

The trail I walked yesterday – one the left, one can clearly see the trail going through the Tonto plateau, about 2500 feet down from the rim.  And then down from that, the patch of the Colorado River where the trail gets to it – and then on the right (faintly) the foot bridge that crosses the river.

 I spent a lot of time going:  “Look here Joe isn’t this amazing”?

We finally exited the park and drove south toward Sedona – again, we could have spent days looking at the different sights.  But we just admired most of them from the car: 

 Here is mount Humphrey (A mount I had never hear of) which, at over 12,000 feet is the highest point in Arizona, and visible from very far away.  It is part of the San Francisco range – a range I had never heard about either…. I guess there is much about this region I still have to learn.

We drove through Flagstaff, which is significantly prettier than I thought.  Not that I thought it was ugly…  I just never thought about Flagstaff… anyway, it is really lovely, in a beautiful ponderosa pines forest, with gorgeous meadows.   But we did not have time to stop, and continued on to Sedona, down the Oak Creek canyon – another amazing sight.

Did not do any sightseeing today, but enjoyed a bit of luxury at “L’auberge de Sedona”, right on the Oak creek, 

 where we had a wonderful dinner right by the creek.

  The food and the setting competed with each other in greatness……Appetizers were Dungeness crab crepe, and bib salad with Dungeness crab.

 Main course was roasted veal cheeks in an earl grey broth with rosemary polenta (I had that, it was simply amazing!),

 and venison with hen of the woods mushrooms (Joe had that – he said it was great, but it could not possibly have been better than the veal cheeks….)

 And of course, dessert….

Now, we are going to do some star gazing (the hotel hires an astronomer, with a high magnitude telescope.  With the dark skies around here, it should be fabulous).

Tomorrow, more hiking and sightseeing.