Sunday, September 4, 2011

Birthday in cool(er) Sedona

After Chocolate Dream cake for breakfast yesterday (isn't that how everyone starts their day?) Tom and I headed north to Sedona to visit with friends Tami & Allan.  Tami and I have been friends for over 30 years (longer than we've known our husbands) having met when we both taught at La Senita in Kingman.  Although they now live in Lake Havasu City (where it's even hotter than Phoenix) they were spending the holiday weekend in scenic Sedona and invited us up to spend the day with them.  

Traffic heading north out of Phoenix was heavier than I expected.  Summer weekend getaways in Phoenix start as early as possible since everyone wants to spend as much time out of the heat as possible.  Thus I'd hoped that I-17 would be empty Saturday morning... I was sadly mistaken ("Nobody flies to Denver on a Sunday", right, Dad?)  It was pretty slow going there for a while, and of course we saw our share of idiot drivers, but we did eventually escape to Sedona.

The four of had a delicious lazy lunch creekside at L'Auberge (LONG time since any of us had even considered eating lunch outside!), and the setting was delightful.  I had my camera with me, but (I know for some of you this will be very hard to believe!) I forgot all about it.  Instead of taking pix I just lugged it around in my purse all day.  This pic I borrowed from their website will have to stand in for us. 

Here's a picture from February of '08, when I was visiting them in LHC.  They were in the process of building their beautiful house - of course it looks much different now!

After gorging on lunch, sadly leaving no room for dessert, we visited a shop (7 rooms of 'stuff'', including an amazing selection of 'animal body parts') where Tom gets some of his knapping supplies.   After this one stop the guys were done 'shopping' so Tami & I deposited them at the Oak Creek Brewery and headed off to do a little foo-foo shopping on our own.  I'd noticed this place on the way into town (with an eye-catching rooster and metal sculpture cacti outside) that looked too interesting to pass up.  
Sure enough, we both found several things that needed to go home with us.

After collecting the guys from the brewery (where the 7 Dwarfs 'platter' had walloped Tom) we headed back to their room to relax and continue chatting.  It was a beautiful spot right on Oak Creek, but it was hard to hear the creek over the cicadas.  In theory we were also going to do dinner together, but when we were still full from lunch at 7:00 Tom and I decided to head back to Phoenix.  (I never did eat anything else the rest of the day!)  As expected the traffic was much lighter heading home, although we were by no means the only folks heading back to the city.
Happy to report that it was below 100 when we got home (99 degrees counts!), a nice birthday surprise. 

No comments:

Post a Comment