That's Beck rocking a naturally-formed chaise lounge in Sedona yesterday, assuming a post either signifying exhaustion or diva-status. Taken at the end of a 3.5 hour hike up there in the red mountains. We left the house at about 8:20 (miracle!) and made it up to Sedona at about 10:30 after a quick stop-off to grab a book about Flagstaff-Sedona area hiking. We read about the Surprise Canyon trail which sounded awesome, except for the 3.4 miles of "very rough road" that stood between us and the trailhead. Did I mention that we took our 8-inch clearance Prius? I mean, I told Beck and told Beck, "Don't get the low-rider version without the hydraulics," but she did. We swallowed some delusional pills and tried to drive the car down a craptastic road obviously designed for four-wheel drive monster trucks. We made it about a quarter of a mile when we hit a patch that required a super monster truck and turned around. We'll have to head back and rent a jeep or something to hit up that trail, but it quite plainly wasn't happening yesterday.
So we pulled out the book again and sought out the Submarine Rock trail, which offered much easier access if not the same level of awesome as the SC. Great little hike - got to see a sink hole, a rock that looks like a U-boat, and some spectacular views, up-close and afar, of the red Sedona mountains. The hike itself was not terribly taxing - about five miles plus a little for some of the wandering we did, and I didn't really have any of those all-too-familiar "about to die" sensations. The trail did run right along a jeep trail, so we were constantly in the presence of Sedona's "Pink Jeep" tours, which was seventeen kinda of annoying. We were also nearly run over by some French mountain bikers, leading to this exchange:
B: "Why don't they ever say thank you when we get out of their way?"
N: "I think because they're French." (Meaning because they don't speak English).
B: "Oh." (Understanding that they were French).
Per usual, the verbal description lacks oomph. What, do you want "the cascading red clays punctured mine eyes; that terrible contrast of maroon sand with jewel-blue sky inspired thoughts of the majesty of geologic forces, wind and river and earthquake alike a master sculptor of this once-monolithic land,"? Um, screw that, we kick it in the visual age! (Incidentally, if you don't want to lose your place on the Ballad, kindly right-click and open these links in a new tab instead of just mindlessly directing yourself away from the page. Cool?):
Nice set: note especially (row, picture #) (1, 6), which shows the scary dark sinkhole. (2,1) shows Beck braving the sinkhole, but more importantly shows her blatantly ignoring Nyet's "look out for the barbed wire" warning. And yes, this is the same Beck who was punctured by a cactus last week. (2,6) is Beck climbing Submarine Rock; gives you a sense of scale. (4,2) is the view from above Chicken's Point; you can make out the Bell in the distance. (4,5) shows Beck, again, bravely taking on the looming mount; she is quite small compared to those spires. (5,1) shows why they call it "Submarine Rock." And picture (6,2) shows a rock formation which Cosmic Ray's book has lovingly dubbed "Bill and Monica," and yeah, there goes the PG rating.
So another in a long list of great hikes, and as Beck pointed out, it was nice to have a somewhat easy hike so you could actually take in the scenery (instead of, say, staring at your own feet and/or Craig's calves the entire time). Really beautiful, and if you are up for a day trip to Sedona, we will certainly accompany you, particularly if you have a car wtih 4-wheel drive and ultra-Prius clearance.
We drove back to Phx and rolled in about 4:45; I decided to take a Sunday off from Ultimate and headed down to Dan's to watch the tragic bludgeoning of several tigers from Detroit. 0-6, ouch. Still fun to watch the game and grab some pizza with the Danimal, and we followed up the travesty of baseball by playing a round of Tiger Wood golf on the Wii - Dan sunk three forty-foot plus shots for eagles and holed a 150 yard shot to save par to best me by 4 strokes, though given that I was golfing with John Daly's character, I'm just glad I did not get DQ'd (I shot a 3 under, for those of you keeping track of my pseudo-athletic exploits, and Dan show a seven under. Cool game, if a little quirky in its Wii-controlledness). Good times; I headed back to the condo to discover that Beck had outfitted our deck with a grill - between that and the fab job she did cleaning the patio and closets, we are now ready to party all-115-degree-summer-long.
Another good weekend for the books. Ultimate tonight, hopefully a better show than last week's turnover-fest. But the goal is fun, fun, fun, so all will be good.
UPDATE - Just realized that we are playing Big Nate's team. So it will be a Nyetian-Nateian showdown. So should be a great game; will let you know the gory, hate-infested details.
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