Sedona to LA

The desert is in bloom! After a very wet spring, the desert areas of the Southwest are green and flowering, making what is otherwise a dull drive very interesting. We tried to keep track of all the diffent kind of cacti (saguaro, prickly pear, barrel)and flowering plants (ocotillo, rapeseed, century plants and many, many more!).

Tip to travellers: Go to the southwest and southern California in April. The variety, the colors and the beauty of the vegetation is unbelievable. That said...some of these areas had record-levels of rain this spring and I think that the incredible bounty was a bit unusual.

We were abruptly shaken from our wildflower glee by car-shaking winds. The area around Palm Springs, California is known as a wind tunnel (thus the impressive fields of wind mills (I guess "turbine" would be a more appropriate word for this modern equipment.) We stopped at a rest area and could barely stand up. The wind was whipping so ferociously and the dust was flying. They even had police officers on the highways motioning for people to slow down due to the near "white-out" (it was more beige, but that doesn't sound right...a beige-out) conditions due to blowing sand.

If you're keeping track, that's white-out number 2 for our trip. Whooopppeeee!

Soon we joined the insane traffic of LA...I am not referring to the amount, though it was more than we'd yet seen, but more to the number of trucks and the speed at which everyone was travelling (80 mph/120 kph bumper-to-bumper) and the crazy zig-zagging in and out of traffic that some drivers do. Nonetheless, we made it safely to our haven in Santa Monica.

Albuquerque to Sedona

On the way to Sedona, Arizona, we stopped in the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park for a hike. Most people drive through the park and take short, marked trails through designated areas. The park ranger informed us that we were free to hike down into the "painted desert" area and simply wander. Since we had both seen the Desert from the strategically placed look-out points, this was a great way to experience the colors, textures and sounds of the desert and the petrified wood.

We drove south from Flagstaff, Arizona amongst the pine trees and cool air, through Oak Creek Canyon a bit before sunset. The quality of light reflecting off the red cliffs and the rock itself was amazing. Arriving in Sedona at sunset is something that everyone should experience.

We spent the next two days with friends who work for Pink Jeep Tours. They got us a tour to Native American cliff dwelling ruins and took us out in their own jeep for some awesome, near vertical 4-wheelin' on the red rock of the Broken Arrow trail. Very exciting!

We also did a couple of hikes in this gorgeous area to a natural rock bridge and through formations. We never did manage to feel the energy that the New Age (what do you call these people??? practitioners? believers? wackos?) folks talk about in relation to certain rock formations. They believe that at special "vortices", there is either an up- or a down-flow of energy, which they classify as male or female. The whole idea came about as the "brain-child" of a woman who visited the area about 30 years ago. Apparently, she is now finding vortices all over the US. New Age centers are everywhere and there is no shortage of companies making a buck on the spiritual experience in Sedona. Here's just one example: Sedona New Age Center