Vacation: Part 1 (Arizona)
It has been pretty quiet around here and I apologize for that but I went on vacation! I've been wanting to visit the Grand Canyon for years and Drew and I finally got the opportunity to. We left early Sunday morning and landed in Arizona around noon. We booked a hotel two hours from Phoenix so we would get a chance to see more than the canyon. We stayed in Flagstaff and that is where I first fell in love with Arizona. I was amazed how the state went from mountains and cacti to pine trees and flower fields so quickly.
Our first night in Flagstaff was perfect. We went into town and stopped in a bunch of shops viewing their local and handmade crafts. What really caught my eye was the effort each shop put into their displays. When I go to some stores here in Jersey, I can tell the owners just don't care but in Flagstaff, there was clear passion in each shop. One store in particular stopped me in my tracks, Sage Brush Trading Co. had a truck on their wall and vintage pieces displaying their items.
The next day was exploring the canyon. We wanted to hike but because of the limited amount of time we had, we could only take a short hike. We chose "Ohh Ahh Trail" which was said to take 1-2 hours. After just that little bit, it's on my bucket list to hike to the bottom. I can't explain how amazing the Grand Canyon is and no picture can do it justice.
Drew's sister told us to take the Sunset Tour so we hopped on a bus right before the sun started setting and saw some incredible views. We stopped at a few main sections of the canyon then watched the sun set at one point.
On Tuesday we had our flight to San Diego at night so we spent the morning in Sedona. It was about a 40 minute drive to Sedona from Flagstaff and again the landscape changed. We were still driving through trees (although a little more woodsy this time) but then these beautiful mountains were added in making the drive spectacular. I will admit that the population seems pretty low on these drives but I would move there in a heartbeat.
Sedona had a very quaint town, a little quiet because of the time we went but cute shops and gorgeous scenery make it a very pleasant experience. We looked up activities in Sedona before going and saw it was a pretty active town with many hiking trails. We decided to do one of the easier trails, "Devil's Bridge". We weren't prepared for the 3/4 mile walk just to get to the trail (because our rental mustang couldn't get to the start of the trail) so it took much longer than expected. But the view was amazing.
Right now, my heart is still in Arizona. My mind is slowly coming back to New Jersey.
