Friday... Food and Fay
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 to work and I spent time on the patio reading and playing games on my phone.
Our chosen hike for this afternoon was Fay Canyon. It is an easy 2-mile hike (1 mile in, 1 mile out). There are lots of places where the trees are still noticeably scorched by a fire resulting from a plane crash that occurred in Fay Canyon in 2014. There is very little change in elevation, so it truly is easy. As I am not in good shape, I still got winded, but really anyone can do it. A young family with a 3 year old was at the end of the trail, and another young family joined us shortly... with mom carrying an infant, dad carrying a 3 year old, and two older kids running ahead. If they can do it, so can I, right?
Kef continued on past the end of the trail and climbed over large rocks to get to the base of a huge anvil-looking rock. We joked that the roadrunner was victorious over the coyote. Kef checked it out and said, "Nailed him." She also got to enjoy a fabulous view that the rest of us missed out on.
While Kef went on ahead, I visited with the families. The first couple lives in Bennington, Vermont... only 30-40 miles away from Kef and I. Interestingly, she is from Hungary originally. We got to talking about accents, as they didn't think mine was New York, and I didn't hear his New Jersey. Hers was different because she learned British English as a teenager in Hungary. The second family that came up had spent six years in Russia, he working as a Lutheran pastor. Russian was the Hungarian woman's "first second language" and the wives had fun sharing some conversation in Russian together. We talked about the different perspectives between Latvians and Hungarians regarding the Soviet Union. Where Latvians consider this period "occupation," Hungarians just considered themselves one of the Soviet states. I don't know all of the history of the two countries, but the woman expressed to me that she was surprised a while back when she learned for the first time of the Latvian perspective on the Soviet period. It was a very interesting conversation, and I was glad to stay at the bottom of the rocks to enjoy it.
As we were headed back up the trail, we were actively looking for a rock cairn marking the head of another trail that goes up to the Fay Canyon Arch. We found it easily and headed up the trail. Kef had read that it fairly quickly went up 260 feet to the base of the arch. Before too long on this trail, I decided that I couldn't/shouldn't continue up the rocky climb. Kef went on a little further ahead, but decided that she didn't want us to be separated as long as it would take to get to the top. We still had a great view and got to take some beautiful pictures.
After the hike out of Fay Canyon (Kef called it a "walk" not a hike), we drove around a little bit and took some pictures of the rock formations from a different perspective. Then we headed back to the hotel to change clothes for dinner before heading out to find a place to enjoy the sunset. We had seen several pull-outs on Dry Creek Road that I thought would be perfect places for sunset-viewing, so we found one of those and walked a little way in on the trail to get to an unobstructed view. I knew it was going to be spectacular because of the feathery clouds that had gathered for the end of the day. I'm always amazed at the colors created by the setting sun... so vibrant... turquoise, peach, even hot pink. Stunning.
We had agreed to go to 89 Steakhouse for dinner, but when we stopped at the light and prepared to turn left we saw Relics on the right. I hadn't noticed that one, so I pulled up the menu and we redirected to go to this historic restaurant. It is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Sedona. It's also supposedly haunted, proven by a TV show on the Travel channel. Obviously, the spirits were at work this evening. From the time we walked in, it was obvious that something odd was going on. The host was "not quite 100%" as he put it, and he took quite a while to seat us. We didn't have reservations, so maybe that's why we were underserved. It took a while before a waiter came to our table. We were the only ones seated in the front room, and we were able to overhear several conversations between the employees. Although we only got bits and pieces, what we could tell for sure was that our waiter was upset... but he successfully pasted a smile on his face each time he approached our table. The food was very good, but the service was odd and slow and awkward. I guess we should have stuck with our original plan, but I still enjoyed my beef stroganoff.
We only have one more day here in Sedona, and I expect that it will be much the same tomorrow... food and hiking. There isn't much to do after the sun sets, besides eat. So if you're planning a visit, know that you'll probably be spending a good bit of time in your hotel room each evening. We've joked about how geriatric we feel.
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 to work and I spent time on the patio reading and playing games on my phone.
Our chosen hike for this afternoon was Fay Canyon. It is an easy 2-mile hike (1 mile in, 1 mile out). There are lots of places where the trees are still noticeably scorched by a fire resulting from a plane crash that occurred in Fay Canyon in 2014. There is very little change in elevation, so it truly is easy. As I am not in good shape, I still got winded, but really anyone can do it. A young family with a 3 year old was at the end of the trail, and another young family joined us shortly... with mom carrying an infant, dad carrying a 3 year old, and two older kids running ahead. If they can do it, so can I, right?
Kef continued on past the end of the trail and climbed over large rocks to get to the base of a huge anvil-looking rock. We joked that the roadrunner was victorious over the coyote. Kef checked it out and said, "Nailed him." She also got to enjoy a fabulous view that the rest of us missed out on.
While Kef went on ahead, I visited with the families. The first couple lives in Bennington, Vermont... only 30-40 miles away from Kef and I. Interestingly, she is from Hungary originally. We got to talking about accents, as they didn't think mine was New York, and I didn't hear his New Jersey. Hers was different because she learned British English as a teenager in Hungary. The second family that came up had spent six years in Russia, he working as a Lutheran pastor. Russian was the Hungarian woman's "first second language" and the wives had fun sharing some conversation in Russian together. We talked about the different perspectives between Latvians and Hungarians regarding the Soviet Union. Where Latvians consider this period "occupation," Hungarians just considered themselves one of the Soviet states. I don't know all of the history of the two countries, but the woman expressed to me that she was surprised a while back when she learned for the first time of the Latvian perspective on the Soviet period. It was a very interesting conversation, and I was glad to stay at the bottom of the rocks to enjoy it.
After the hike out of Fay Canyon (Kef called it a "walk" not a hike), we drove around a little bit and took some pictures of the rock formations from a different perspective. Then we headed back to the hotel to change clothes for dinner before heading out to find a place to enjoy the sunset. We had seen several pull-outs on Dry Creek Road that I thought would be perfect places for sunset-viewing, so we found one of those and walked a little way in on the trail to get to an unobstructed view. I knew it was going to be spectacular because of the feathery clouds that had gathered for the end of the day. I'm always amazed at the colors created by the setting sun... so vibrant... turquoise, peach, even hot pink. Stunning.
We had agreed to go to 89 Steakhouse for dinner, but when we stopped at the light and prepared to turn left we saw Relics on the right. I hadn't noticed that one, so I pulled up the menu and we redirected to go to this historic restaurant. It is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Sedona. It's also supposedly haunted, proven by a TV show on the Travel channel. Obviously, the spirits were at work this evening. From the time we walked in, it was obvious that something odd was going on. The host was "not quite 100%" as he put it, and he took quite a while to seat us. We didn't have reservations, so maybe that's why we were underserved. It took a while before a waiter came to our table. We were the only ones seated in the front room, and we were able to overhear several conversations between the employees. Although we only got bits and pieces, what we could tell for sure was that our waiter was upset... but he successfully pasted a smile on his face each time he approached our table. The food was very good, but the service was odd and slow and awkward. I guess we should have stuck with our original plan, but I still enjoyed my beef stroganoff.
We only have one more day here in Sedona, and I expect that it will be much the same tomorrow... food and hiking. There isn't much to do after the sun sets, besides eat. So if you're planning a visit, know that you'll probably be spending a good bit of time in your hotel room each evening. We've joked about how geriatric we feel.
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