As I shared in my December post, when I returned from my first visit to Sedona in 2015 I held a creative energy from which there was no release. I then shared my Southwest experiences with Nathan in the hopes that he would develop an interest in visiting. I was doubtful that he would, though, because he had lived in California and had already traveled in the West. I wanted it to be “new” to him! It turned out that, other than a visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon years before, he had not explored Arizona. It also turned out that I didn't have a clue about the vastness of what is considered to be "the West". I grew up in Maine, ya know?
So, the following year, I was thrilled when we flew out to explore Sedona and beyond. Imagine my alarm when, as we drove into the outskirts of town, Nathan began to shout “Stop the car! Stop the car!” I thought he might be sick to his stomach. But when I did manage to pull over, he jumped from the car with his camera and quickly headed for the looming reddish orange bluffs!
It was a whole different trip than my last. We hiked and explored Sedona shops & galleries. We discovered nearby Payson with its Travertine bridge within Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, blindly selecting several trails - purposely unmaintained I might add - that took us four hours to complete. What were we thinking???
We also travelled up to the South Rim for a few days. On day one we walked the Rim Trail amongst a throng of visitors. That night, my dormant brave side told me that I needed to experience those canyon walls. So on day two, with Nathan impressed by my gutsy attitude, we hiked down into the Canyon for a limited distance and then took at least twice as long to come back up. It’s steep, ya know, and we were taking pictures during breathing breaks. LOL
For me, the Canyon Rim hike just added fuel to the thought of actually living in the Southwest and having ready access to mountains that were calling to the spiritual side of me. Besides, my body was welcoming the physical challenge of exploring those rocks.
After ten days of “mountain highs” hubby and I returned to Florida and a clock in the ether began to tick - with intuition emerging at weird intervals - towards the possibility of a cross country move. “But where would we want to live?” was the question that began to haunt us throughout the next year.
Arizona turned out to hold so much more than just gorgeous Sedona. 😎😎😎 - to be continued
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