Sedona, AZ

 3/3/23

Not one of the nicest places we have camped so far, but it is a safe place and the morning view was pretty nice!

Sedona, AZ!!!!!

Route 89A....a beautiful stretch of road!!!  It was closed, because they got so much snow, but the road crew in Sedona works miracles!

This is called Midgley Bridge....there was a pull off and we hopped out for a quick hike!

Because we couldn't find a place to camp last night, we sprung for a campsite at Rancho Sedona RV Park....it was expensive, $88, (I KNOW) it is a beautiful campground, with WIFI, hot showers, and well, that's about it, and I know that sounds like a ridiculous price, but we have saved a lot of money on free camping on this trip, SO......AND, as a side note, we have a neighbor who has a pet duck named DUCKota!!!!

We couldn't check in until noon, so we figured we would do a hike to Soldier's Pass!

OOPS........the guy in the truck in front of us backed up (there was another trailer in trouble ahead of him) Ernie got out to see if he could help and the next thing I know (as I was looking at my computer) was BAM!  I just about soiled myself, but mostly because I knew Ernie had to be sick....HIS TRUCK!!  By the goodness of God (who has been with use this WHOLE trip) there was VERY minimal damage to the truck....a small piece of chrome seems dented, but we won't know until we get back to PA and have it checked out!

Start of the Soldiers Pass Trail (4.7 roundtrip and 1 mile to the trailhead)

Thanks to the Byrd Family who were vacationing here in Sedona from Alaska (they wanted a break from snow....LOL)!  They had 2 adorable little girls who kept us chuckling the whole way up to the caves!  Thank goodness for them (God moment) because they led us on an incredible hike!  He had an app called Trail All (Ernie now has it too)!  Anyway, they were a wonderful family (will show a pick of them at the caves)!

This is called Devil's Kitchen...the rock split perfectly and fell into a cave!

7 Sacred Pools!  Now if you Google 7 sacred caves at Sedona, you will see actual pools of water, but because the run off was so bad, the pools were overflowing!

We walked through A LOT of cricks (yes, Ernie and I refuse to say creek) that are usually non-existent in this dry Arizona landscape! A lot of beautiful scenery...almost too much to look at, at one time)

This is the start of the hike up to the cave (we had already gone a couple miles, but this last little bit was steep and, at times, a little dicey (thanks goodness for hiking sticks)!

But look at what we saw at the top.........

I wasn't going back in there to explore!

This is odd, but this is a picture looking up, at one point in the cave!

This is the Byrd Family!!!!!!!  Great family!!!!

We decided to start back down without the companionship of this little family (and not hold them up, because they were quite a bit quicker than us)!  Kept getting muddier, and muddier, and wetter and wetter!  But surprisngly, the mud wasn't all that slippery!

My hiking stick, should give you an idea of how steep the way back down actually was (at some parts anyway)!

Took a little water break on the way back down at the 7 Sacred Pools!

We made it back to the truck (then we remembered....:( ) but the day was so glorious, it really didn't matter (well maybe it would if there was more damage, but thankfully not)!

Back at our $88 campsite, showered (HOT HOT HOT), ate dinner, and crashing!

Planning on another short hike tomorrow, then driving to Flagstaff, where we are getting a hotel room and a good dinner at a good restaurant (AND ANOTHER HOT SHOWER)!

NIGHT!