Leaving the G.C. we headed south through Flagstaff and on to Sedona. We stayed in a very pretty RV park dotted with mature trees. While we cooked dinner, the boys played the World Championship of Bucket Hacky-Sack (not sure who won) and whittled sticks with their new pocket-knives.
Next morning a Pink Jeep met us at the park and took us out to explore the red rocks for which Sedona is famous. Our driver was great - a Larry David type - funny and very knowledgable of the area. We spent two hours driving up the sides of the mountain at impossible angles and descending down precipitous ravines. I got a whole new appreciation for good tires, four-wheel drive and of course, the legendary Jeep. It is cat-like.
Afterwards when checking out at the RV park office, I asked the manager what would she suggest we do for the rest of our time in Sedona. She immediately starting rattling off State Parks where the rocks and views were spectacular. It was then I realized we had done nothing but look at rocks for six days and it was time to get back to civilization. So we headed for Jerome, an old mining town, but not before we stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This might be one of the most pictuturesque churches in the US. Built in 1956 by Marguerite Bruswig Staude, a student of Frank Llyod Wright, it is an impressive structure that sits on the rocks as if it had always been there (I know, more rocks).
Jerome, on the other had, was once known as "the wickedest town in the west" where miners cavorted in saloons with the ahem, "ladies". Built by the riches of the cooper mines starting in 1883, it once boasted a population of several thousand, it is now down to several hundred and one excellent joke shop.
After ice cream and a stroll up and down both sides of the town, it was time again to saddle up and hit the interstate as we began to turn east and head back towards home. One more stop: The Meteor Crater near Winslow (yes, that Winslow, as in "I was standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona...").
The crater might be one of the world's biggest - close to a mile wide - and most intact but in terms of admission fees, what a gyp. Veni, vidi, vici. We left grumpy and about $50 poorer. (Point being, it cost $25 to get into the Grand Canyon).
My pics were lousy, I borrowed this one from Wikipedia...
And so on to Gallup for the night. Our last full day with BB was complete.
It was like a scene from the Godfather, except the horse was alive. He showed up late, unannounced and plopped himself in Kevin's lap. Unlike the Famous Mr. Ed, he could not speak, but made funny head motions, in some little understood horse language. He stayed all of 30 seconds and I gave his tail a pull as he was leaving. What if it had come off? Would it wriggle around like a gecko's? The last time we saw him, he literally had some young ladies head in his mouth. Don't they feed him?
The day after Kieran's baseball team went from last to first to first to win their baseball Championship, we happened to be a Ranger game. I called ahead, asking that they put "Congrats Rockies" on the scoreboard. They couldn't, but asked where were we sitting and said they would send Captain over in the second inning. We waited impatiently, counting the outs but when by inning # 5, Mr. Captain was a no-show and we had lost hope. I made the mistake of telling the mean old bag sitting beside me that Captain was going to pay a visit. She was beside herself in jealousy and I know she was secretly delighted when Captain did not show... But lo, in the sixth, the horseman cometh... now where is that mean old woman?
