Where To Now?

Today was the first day we actually slept in... really slept. Kef said each time she turned over she fell back in to a deep sleep. I think her body just hasn't caught up from being up coughing every night. I think it was probably almost 10:30 before we actually turned on a light and decided to get up. By the time we were ready to go out looking for food, it was almost noon. I thought we were going to have lunch in Sedona and find another hike to do. Kef had other plans. I had mentioned that I thought I might go to Jerome and check it out one day while she was on a conference call, but I had never done it. Because it was more of a historical destination, I thought she wouldn't prefer to go there. But she decided we'd go check it out. It was a beautiful drive! Jerome is an old mining town that is perched on a steep hill. There is a state historical site there, as well as a mining museum. There are also about a gazillion people there around noon on a Saturday. And since...

Today's plan included eating a late breakfast (since Kef would be on a conference call over the lunch hour), hiking, and eating dinner at one of the restaurants we've been passing all week. If you ever visit Sedona, you'll find that your primary purpose on any given day is eating. Our choice for breakfast was Nick's. It's a small restaurant, supposedly where the locals go. I do think that's the case because the conversations we overheard were among locals. (Just know that if you ever eat at a table near us, we're probably listening to your conversation.) I had the chorizo and eggs, which was outstanding. Kef was less enamored with the country fried steak and eggs. She said the cream gravy was odd. After breakfast we made our daily trip to Walgreen's (almost daily, anyway... Kef has way underestimated the number of Kleenex it's going to take to get her through the week). Next door, Starbuck's was calling us as usual. Back at the hotel, Kef got t...

New Day Spa was our destination for the morning... facials and massages. There are no pictures of this... you don't want to see it. But noteworthy from the this visit was an interesting book, which I'll look up to read more later. It's about water, and the subtitle was, "You're not sick, you're thirsty." It addressed all kinds of various things that ail us, and how water is the answer to most. I only read a bit of it in between my spa treatments, but I'm sure I'll be looking into it further. We had previously discussed that we didn't want to go hiking after our spa morning, so we had plans to check out a French restaurant called Rene. It's tucked into a village of shops and galleries called Tlaquepaque, which is inspired by a town of the same name in Mexico. The artist who first created the space was inspired by communal spaces in Mexico where artists could gather to not only practice their craft but also sell their art and build relation...

The first item on our list today was: don't set an alarm. Kef didn't have to be on a conference call, so the intent was to sleep as long as we're able. Apparently we're only able to sleep until about 7 a.m. We are, however, adept at wasting time. We managed to get ourselves around enough to go find breakfast by about 8:45 or so. Trudy had recommended a place called Wildflower Bread Company, which was in a shopping center with several galleries and shops. Kef really enjoyed her three cheese frittata, and my pancakes were super fluffy. We spent an inordinate amount of time at the breakfast table trying to figure out what "guy from YouTube" Tresia's son dressed up as for Halloween. She said she was too old to “get it” – and so Kef and I also wanted to know if we were too old. I was convinced that he was supposed to be Pyrocynical because of his shirt. And it took a fair bit of sleuthing to come to that conclusion. We were feeling "woke" by the t...

Since Kef had another conference call first thing this morning, I woke myself from a pleasant dream and took my coffee out on the patio for some quiet solitude. Although the pool and road are in the foreground, if you focus "up" you get a nice view of Capitol Butte (aka Thunder Mountain) with a bit of fall foliage thrown in for good measure. As time passed, more people woke up and got to work delivering waffle batter in noisy trucks and blowing fallen leaves into more appropriate piles. The silence over, I gathered my stuff and got ready for another day of stunning views, great food, and even better company. We geared up for hiking and went in search of an early lunch as fuel for the journey. The Coffee Pot Café had piqued our interest, so we sat down to a pages-long menu full of breakfast and lunch fare. My turkey reuben and seasoned curly fries hit the spot for me, and Kef's club was so tall she had to dismantle it to take a bite. We had researched the easiest ...

We woke up early this morning, primarily because we went to bed so early yesterday. Kef had about 4 hours worth of conference calls in the middle of the day, so we went right to breakfast to make sure we were back in time for all of that. We drove south to a restaurant we saw on the way here...  Black Bear Diner. I had a delicious cinnamon roll french toast, plus walked away with a cute coffee mug. Kef had a hearty chicken fried steak with hashbrowns, eggs, and a ginormous buttermilk biscuit. We had a few minutes to spare before Kef needed to be back, so we made our way up to a scenic lookout point near the airport. The view was spectacular... and apparently many tour groups come here. There was a large group that had come in to the Phoenix airport at the same time we did. But they moved on and cleared some space for us to get a view and some photos from a prime location. The parking lot attendant told us we should come back for sunset... our parking pass would still be good. ...