Sedona

Sedona is a very unique and wonderful place that Bob and I just adore! Driving in you are greeted by red and white rock walls and spires, and with each mile the vistas change and expand. It is a dynamic and ever changing view.

We were anxious to see how we felt about Sedona after our winter in Florida. We still love it! So this makes our decision about where to relocate even harder. I had hoped that we would not be as enthralled as we have been in the past, but no such luck.

The thing we love the most about Sedona is the hiking trails. They are everywhere and this time we experienced a host of new ones. We were very surprised by the West Fork Trail that runs through a thick pine forest along a branch of Oak Creek. As we climbed to over 5,000 feet we ran into pockets of snow along the path, which was quite odd when the temps in town were in the low 80s. We had many water crossings on this hike that were really challenging, but we made it back with dry feet.

Bob is not a big fan of snakes and is always on alert in areas where snakes live. In our year on the road, we had only seen two snakes and neither of them were poisonous, but this week we encountered a three-foot long rattlesnake on the trail. So Bob finally got to experience a wild and deadly snake, that didn’t even rattle at us. He just slowly moved to the side of the trail. I got a few pictures before we turned around and let him have that path.

The weather here was perfect, sunny with blue skies and daytime highs in the upper 70s and low 80s. We saw the hottest days of 2011 so far.

Besides enjoying the many restaurants here, we made some new friends. We were able to meet and spend some time with Linda, from Dolphin Heart World. We also reconnected with a lovely couple we met at Lake Powell last year. They said they lived in Sedona and might be interested in moving to the northwest. We said we live in the northwest and might be interested in moving to Sedona. They have a fantastic estate here in Sedona, and have put heir home on the market. It’s definitely out of our price range, so no swap in the making.

Bob and I did spend an afternoon looking at homes with a realtor. The prices have really come down in the last two years, but we didn’t find one that we couldn’t live without. We still have some thinking to do about the Sarasota versus Sedona decision. It’s funny how we can be so attracted to such different places.