Only a week to go and we are on the road again!  Our 3 months in Sedona have just flown past and we still have stuff to do before we leave, which proves our point that you need at least 6 months to really enjoy your new home.

Apart from the water aerobics, gym, jolking to stay up with the eating and drinking, we have continued to see as much of the area as possible.  However, the weather and winter conditions means it gets dark early and we have to pick our travel days.  Last week we had 2-3 inches of snow and sub-zero temperatures for a couple of days, which mean we hunkered down and drank vin choux.  The red rock mesas covered in snow look quite spectacular.  Probably because of our altitude the snow was small firm pellets, and not flaky and slushy, quite pleasant until it softened and then froze!

As soon as we got back from Palm Springs we went out to dinner with our newest, bestest, friends in the Verde Valley Amy Stein and Howie Usher, who we met on our scouting trip to Sedona back in July.  Amy is a professor at Yavapai College and Howie is a retired professor who now works on rafting trips through the Grand Canyon to keep himself busy!  We went to Mariposa a new restaurant that only opened a few months ago, and is renowned for its views of Sedona’s red rocks.  It has an imposing dining room with 50 foot glass walls and a 180 degree view over the Sedona wildness area – pretty awesome to say the least.  Amy gave us the local info on the Mariposa site, which was once the HQs of Sedona’s biggest construction company.  The owner was caught cheating on his wife and ended up selling the company to pay off his ex!  We appreciated his sacrifice.  A great menu, but we didn’t get past their tapas section!  We had 8 dishes between us, one of which was a Triple Queso Truffle Mac & Cheese!  I know, not a tapas dish but who the hell is not going to try this!  The Fried Avocado with Pimento Aioli was outstanding and seriously moreish.  Also found a new wine – Bonardo – from the Mendoza region of Argentina.  Almost a Zin in many respects – a really nice wine at a good price.

In amongst the snow storms we went out to the V Bar V petroglyph site, the premier rock drawing site in northern AZ.  The V Bar V part comes from the ranch that was on the site was before it was turned over to the Forestry Service.  Another beautiful, remote, site with a huge wall of petroglyphs that an onsite docent deciphered for us.  While excavating the site they realised a rock cleft high up on the cliff had been altered to mark the winter solstice on a rock at the bottom of the bluff.  At another spot a long thin rock jammed in a crack had a wavy edge to it that caste shadows showing the spring planting months on another part of the rock face.  This site was purely a religious and ceremonial site as there were no dwellings anywhere near it.  Our guide said the whole area was full petroglyphs and rock paintings, as well as the remains of buildings and terraced farming.  All from the Sanagua people around 800 to 1000 years ago.

Sedona had its second annual restaurant week that started just after we got back from Palm Springs, so we went to a couple of the better restaurants we hadn’t tried.  Amy and Howie joined us for dinner at L’Auberge the restaurant in Sedona’s premier resort hotel.  A 3 for $40 menu with 2 choices in each course, and as there were four of us we covered the whole menu!  Fabulous food – the best we’d had in Sedona so far.  Huge wine list rated by the Wine Spectator as one of the best in the west.  Amy chose an Arizonan red from a vineyard they knew that worked really well with our dinner.  Howie, knew everyone in the restaurant as they were his ex-students – a fun evening!  Next for restaurant week was the Saltrock Southwest Kitchen in the Amara Resort – not as up market as L’Auberge, but produced some great food all from a 3 for $30 menu.  One side of the restaurant had a wall of spoons – neat – but not up to Ms Rose’s wall back in Charleston.  Also, following Ms Rose’s they had a roasted corn appetiser, but this was grill roasted corn that had been taken off the cob and served with a spicy aioli sauce – delicious!

Ann signed us up for a geology hike in the Red Rock State Park, which turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day, though a bit chilly.  At least it wasn’t snowing!  We hadn’t hiked this area so a great opportunity for a new hike and to learn something of how the red rock country came about.  A super day, and needless to say we learnt a lot!  The hike was something over 2 hours, but there was a fair bit of lecturing a certain spots.  A small group of mostly “older” overweight Americans, but hey there were out there!  Ann and I were the fittest by a mile and were on the heels of our guide lecturer – yes!

Red Rock State Park before the snow!

Our next expedition was to Prescott, pronounced “Presket” of course!  The home of Earp boys and Doc Holiday in the good old bad days, before they moved to Tombstone.  It’s not until you look at a map you realise how out there Prescott is – you go to Prescott – that’s it – it’s not on the way to anywhere else.  One of those mile high cities amongst the mountains sitting at 5400 ft.  Going we drove through Jerome, the old mining town, and over the mountains, topping out at above 7500 ft.  A truly scenic route as you slowly make your way through numerous hair pins bends on a really narrow road amongst the pine trees covered in snow.

Rt. 89A  into Prescott.

Prescott itself has a population of 40,000, but is now just part of a sprawling urban mess, much of it new, which I would think is over 200,000.  We were not impressed.  The mountains lack the colour of Sedona so the winter landscape is pretty drab. Has a neat down town area with some nice older houses around the central square and courthouse, but that’s about it.

Down town Presket.

We visited the Sharlot Hall Museum, which is a small campus of 9 buildings, giving the history of Prescott from prehistoric times through to the present.  The site is anchored by the original governor’s mansion built in 1864 and still in its original location.  The Mansion escaped demolition because of Sharlot Hall, who founded the Museum in the Governor’s Mansion in 1927.  We took a break for lunch at the local brewery on Courthouse Square, which served mediocre food in huge portions, but did have excellent beer.  Then it was on to the Smoki Museum, the local Native American museum.  However, it turned out to be far more than that!  The young Hopi man in charge explained the Smoki was in fact a fraternal order of local white business men who dressed up as Indians and started doing the Hopi Snake Dance in 1921 to raise money for the Presket Rodeo.  Interesting connection here with Senator Barry Goldwater who was a member of the Smoki.  During the 20s and 30s the Hopi were actually banned from performing their sacred dances, and school age Hopi were compelled to go to boarding school to learn non-Indian practises.  This carried on for 70 years, but during this period the Smoki People actually collected large quantities of Indian artefacts, and constructed the museum during the 1930s depression. It was designed as a Hopi pueblo meeting hall by an artist who had lived with the Hopi and is made from local materials.  An outstanding collection housed in a beautiful building, run by the Hopi, who were basically banned from being Hopi until 1979 when the Freedom of Religion Act was passed.  Talk about living history!  Then it was back home via I-17 and Cottonwood, a longer route but actually quicker as you don’t have to crawl over the Mingus Mountain range.

We are now coming up to our first Christmas on the road.  The Wombat did an amazing job of selecting our Sedona Christmas card and producing the Christmas letter, so everything went out on time for once.  Our Christmas decorations comprise of the cards we have received, and the presents are stacked below a decorative cactus.  Also, the weather is playing its part by being cold and snowy, and vin choux and hot rum chocolate are regular evening beverages.  We have a reservation for an early dinner at Rene’s on Christmas Day, which has an awesome set menu, so basically all’s right with the world.  We of course miss our family and friends at this time of the year, but just think of all stuff we can bore them with when we next get together. Yo Ho Ho!!