Day 1: Mom and I left on Saturday, flew into Phoenix and rented a car to drive to Sedona, which is about 2 hours drive from the airport. We got there a little too early for the resort check-in, so we went into town and just drove around a bit to get an idea what was there. We went to the visitor center and picked up brochures for the area, and found out that parking on federal parkland was free on Veteran's Day (Sunday), where normally they make you pay $5 for a day pass. So we decided we would do our red rock hiking Sunday. We checked into our cabin at the resort, unloaded all our stuff, then went back into town to find something for dinner. One thing we found out is that it gets really dark out there at night. They don't really have any street lights to light up the road, the only lights we had were from the shops and restaurants themselves, which were small. So it was really hard to see where the driveways were to turn into. We got really good views of the stars at night though, and could even see the Milky Way. You can't see that with the light pollution in big cities.

Day 2: We went to the vortex sites that were rated as easy hiking - Cathedral Rock (quite a bit of climbing actually. Mom complained that she didn't think it was all that easy and had to stop and rest a few times on the way up. I have to say that doing yoga for about a year now really helped me.), Bell Rock (that really was easy), Airport Rock (one of the vortexes is actually at the Sedona Municipal Airport), and the Chapel in the Red Rocks (a Catholic Church built near a formation called the Madonna and Child Rock, no longer holding services, but a tourist thing now). Before going on the hikes, we went to a restaurant called Wildflower Bread Company for breakfast and took some sandwiches from there along with us to eat for lunch. Some of the best food there I think, but I love breakfast food. After we'd seen enough red rocks up close for a while, we went to uptown to look at the shops and eat Arizona style Mexican food. I had blue corn enchiladas, not bad.

Day 3: Monday morning we went to Angel Valley, a retreat place that says they have about 20 vortexes scattered around the place, and two labyrinths (which I walked), cabins and even teepees people can stay in. Nice scenery, not many people there (unlike the main red rock viewpoints we went to the day before), so very quiet and peaceful. I could have done the full day, but Mom only wanted to do a half day, so I felt a little rushed. Unfortunately being with Mom made meditating and experiencing the spirituality of the place a little difficult. I'm going to talk to Mark about having a Gnostic retreat out there some day in the future, maybe with the mother Circle in California and other Sophian Circles all meeting there. That would be really cool. Tau Malachi's family lives in Sedona, so he goes there frequently anyway. I did stop by the metaphysical store where +Malachi's sister works and asked for her, like he said to, but found out she had knee surgery recently and would be out for another 2 weeks or so. Oh well, I can tell him I tried at least.

We went to a fancy restaurant up in the red rocks near the airport for lunch. It really did have some great views, and we got to eat outside. The dessert was the most notable thing on the menu there - Mom even took a picture of it, which I'll post with the other photos later. First time I'd ever had avacado ice cream. It was interesting. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening in uptown shopping, and found out that the stores close really early. In one shopping center, almost all the shops closed at 5pm (we got there around 4pm), so we didn't get to see a lot. That was the expensive art area anyway, so it wasn't like I was going to buy anything there. The uptown shops close around 6 or 7pm. I priced Hopi kachina dolls in the Indian art shops (very expensive compared to the Navajo ones I'm used to seeing everywhere, the cheapest was a small one at $195, most were in the $400-$1600 range), so I kept that in mind for the Hopi reservation trip we were making the next day. They had a couple gem and crystal shops too (Sedona is a kinda new agey place), and found a really nice DOW crystal for a pretty good price, but the really amazing crystal in there was the one up front that was about 2 feet tall and must have weighed close to 100 lbs...they were asking $12,000 for it. It was amazing to see, and when I got close to it, my heart would beat faster.

Day 4: We went on a tour to the Hopi reservation. Our tour guide was part Lakota, and part another tribe I can't remember, and his wife was Cherokee. He told us a lot about several Indian tribes, sang songs in different Indian languages, and told some Indian stories and Lakota wisdom. It was really interesting to see the Hopi mesas. They have no running water up there and don't want to drill wells because they would be drilling through the ancient ruins of their ancestors, so they have to bring it all in and keep it in holding tanks. I'm assuming that means their homes have no indoor plumbing either. They still mostly use wood burning stoves, and outdoor brick ovens for baking. They do give tours of their mesa, but don't allow any photography at all. Before we went on the Hopi guided tour, we spent some time looking at some of the crafts several of the Hopi who live there were bringing out. We'd look at one artist's work, then another would set up (word must have gotten out that tourists were there), and then another, so we spent some time going back and forth between artists. I bought one Warrior Maiden kachina doll that a woman had carved (carving is traditionally a Hopi men's art), because I really like the story behind her (the Hopi are able to tell you all the symbolism of their kachinas and the stories behind them too). After talking to another young woman carver about kachinas and the stories behind the ones she made, Mom bought a butterfly maiden kachina, and during our walking tour we briefly stopped by another artist's table and she bought me the nicest kachina we saw: a Long Haired Maiden coming out of an ear of corn (corn is very important to the Hopi, they grow 6 different kinds), which was is just amazing. I know if we had bought these in the stores in town we would have paid at least double. Much better to buy directly from the artist than from a store or gallery.

Our Lakota guide brought some bear root with him (which he called medicine) and passed out pieces to all the Hopi and to those of us on the tour. A European couple was on the mesa taking the Hopi tour with us, and he gave some to them too. The wife had a cold or something and started coughing, so he gave her some for her throat. He said bear root was medicine for the throat, and it helps him to keep from getting dry while doing lots of singing at powwows and other Indian events he goes to. It was a very strong taste, kinda reminded me of licorice. We also got to eat lunch at the Hopi Cultural Center and got to try a traditional Hopi lamb stew and blue corn fry bread.

After we got back into town, we went to the Barking Frog restaurant, which our tour guide said was the best southwestern food in Sedona. It was pretty good, although what I got turned out to be spicier than I thought. Thankfully the cream sauce that went with it cooled it down so I could eat it.

Day 5: Wednesday we drove up to the Grand Canyon, which is about a 2 hour drive from Sedona. We did the bus tour along one end of it, where they drive you to each point and you can get on and off the buses as they come along at your own pace. Mom got some good pictures. Every point we stopped at had at least one raven. Mom called them our greeters. Those are some big birds, and they actually let you get pretty close to them. I got several little things from the gift shops up there, including a pair of Zuni made earrings made just for double pierced ears, which I had never seen before. I also picked up a bag of prickly pear taffy, a pair of opal earrings, and a few things for Ray. We stayed until sunset, then drove back to town, stopping at an Outback Steakhouse in Flagstaff on the way back for dinner. We both had their Wednesday special, which was a sampler plate of filet medallions, salmon, a crabcake, mashed vanilla bean sweet potatoes, and green beans. Really good.

Day 6: Checked out of the resort and had breakfast at Wildflower Bread Company again. Mom took some last minute pictures of more of the red rock formations, Snoopy Rock and Submarine Rock, which you could see from their patio outside. Then we did more shopping in uptown one last time. I picked up something else for Ray, a pretty blue rock called Smithsonite (supposed to be a peace-bringing spiritual rock), a small onyx bowl that was 1/2 off (our tour guide told us to "feed" our kachinas with blue corn meal or the blue piki bread he gave us as he dropped us off at our resort - an incredibly difficult thin bread to make, which I think of as Hopi crepes - made with a Hopi woman's bare hands on a hot stone) to put cornmeal in, and a raven fetish to remind me of all the ravens we saw out there. Mom got some pieces of Smithsonite, an eagle fetish made of seashell, and a corn maiden fetish made of bone, which is a very nice piece. On the way out of town I stopped by +Malachi's sister's store one more time to get the crystal ball I'd really liked the first time we went in there, but of course Mom didn't want me to get because she just doesn't get that sort of thing. It's small, but probably the same size as Mark's, and really pretty natural quartz. I also found a nice amethyst crystal that is also a dow crystal, and picked up a small amethyst crystal cut into a six pointed star shape for Mark (amethyst is supposed to help headaches - don't know if it will help Mark's migraines and clusters, but who knows). Then we headed back to Phoenix to turn in the rental car and get to the airport. We got to the airport rather early for our flight, so after checking our luggage we looked around the shops in the airport a bit. I bought a couple magnets with little cacti in them, one for me and one for Mark (kind of a joke, we'd talked about how he wants cacti for his yard).

Our flight was a little delayed, so we didn't leave until about 8:30 and got to DFW around 11:30. Dad picked us up and took us back to their house. We got here around 12:30, so I spent the night here.