Southwest Adventures: Starting our Southwest Sojourn (Phoenix and Surrounds)

Stately Saguaro Cactus

We headed out to the Newark Airport for our 5PM flight to Phoenix, Arizona, driving our rented KIA Soul along the rainy highways of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We have never driven the KIA Soul before, and it was a new & pleasant experience for sure. Nice handling, tight steering radius, simple controls, good gas mileage, roominess galore, good pick-up when needed, lots of visibility, good headroom, etc. Frank was not blown away by the box-like styling, but, that aside, it could be a next vehicle for consideration if other important consumer features are mostly positive.

Once again, we are flying United Airlines, which has never been our favorite, but this flight was not so bad. The real "piece de resistance" came when the gent in the window seat of our row vacated his seat for a better seat way up front; we were ecstatic! We now had the unusual luxury of sitting, just us two people, in a 3-seat row! Haaaa! It doesn’t get any better than that when you are flying in a tiny little Boeing 737 in economy class!! Yesssss!

Cheers to long-time friendships!

We enjoyed a very special stay with our good friends Kathy and Jim outside of Phoenix. They picked us up at the Phoenix Airport, fed us, and gave us a room that we would call “home” for the next four days in their lovely home. They joked that they were running a B&B for the Supsic’s and wondered how we would rate them. Well, 5 stars are not nearly enough! Wonderful hospitality, plus fantastic touring all around the area.

A lone Saguaro by the glistening blue-green lake

Lake Pleasant

Lake Pleasant was one of the destinations where the Kathy and Jim B&B van took us for a hike thru a desert environment. It definitely lived up to its name, with a large, blue-green recreational lake surrounded by desert landscapes. We weren’t expecting much greenery out here in the desert, much less a lake!

More mighty Saguaros!!

Surrounding the lake were lots of Saguaro cacti. These stately, perfectly balanced “desert trees” were eye candy to us easterners who had never seen one in real life before. Saguaro cacti only grow in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, California, and Mexico. These so-called cactus trees with lots of branches are often 50 to 100 years old, and they can live for over 300 years! These desert survivors can store 1500 gallons of water allowing them to survive for months or even years with no rain.

Saguaro Cactus in bloom

We hiked one of the desert trails to take a closer look at the Saguaros and even saw some of them blooming with plump cactus flowers. Many wrens nest (in a hole) in the upper part of the trunk of the cactus. We wondered if the many holes made in these cacti by birds tend to shorten the lives of these behemoths, or is there some unknown (to us) symbiotic connection between birds and cactus?

Beautiful Bell Rock in Sedona

Sedona

Prior to leaving, whenever we talked about this trip, people would say, “You have to see Sedona!” Well, now we know what all the fuss is about. Before this trip, the only “Sedona” we knew was a luxury KIA vehicle!

Stunning Red Rock Country!

Sedona has an imposing location in Arizona. Lots of red rock formations surrounding the town are simply awe-inspiring. The ambiance of the surroundings is simply beyond description. But we’ll give it a try. Perfectly balanced boulders at the top of tall rock columns; eroded sandstone rock, forming lines that make the rock look like artistically-painted canvases; and rocks that stand erect almost human in shape, standing like centurions guarding the town from above.

Imposing Red Rock Bluffs in Sedona

Alcoves carved in the sides of sheer cliffs seemed like caves or living quarters of civilizations long past, and the striated white and yellow rock strata added color and pizazz to everything. The sharply chiseled features added drama and interest to the formations, providing a sense of mass and bulk that made us feel humbled. We stood there pondering this beauty of nature, awed by its presence, and feeling like just a very tiny part of the cosmos. Our pictures cannot do these things justice.

Church of the Holy Cross in Sedona

Jim drove us to see even more Sedona rock highlights up on a high plateau where a church (The Church of the Holy Cross) had been built right into the sheer side of red rock.

Magnificent cactus blooms

This spot gave us a closer look at the many cliffs and bluffs of red rocks, and also lots of strange new desert plants & cactus covered with colorful flowers. The views from here were some of the best yet.

Downtown Sedona

We ate a very special Mexican lunch at HP Café in Sedona, and then strolled thru town checking out the shops & sights. The ambiance here is touristy with shops built in modern Spanish pueblo-style of architecture. Lots of psychic readers and crystal sellers occupy many of the shops. Of course, the psychic stuff was a bunch of voodoo to our ever-skeptic Frank, so he opted to avoid these money-grubbing wackos as he called them. Overall, the town has an exceptionally artsy flavor with sculptures decorating the streets like one of Sacagawea and another depicting a javalina (pig-like desert dwellers common to the area). For extra fun, the town provides public xylophones where anyone can pick up a pair of xylophone bongers and play.

The four of us explore the Desert Botanical
Gardens

Desert Botanical Gardens

The flora of the southwest is so different from our state of Pennsy, that we needed a day in the Desert Botanical Gardens for a look at the indigenous plant life. Once again, our gracious B&B hosts, Jim and Kathy offered to take us there and check out the stuff with us.

Incredible variety of cacti!

We never realized there were so many varieties of cacti! Stunning Prickly Pears in many unique varieties were common, lots of Organ Pipes, yucca in bloom, barrel cactus, and lots of aloe, just to name a few.

The rare Crested Saguaro (in bloom!)

Best of all, was the Crested Saguaro with a shell-shaped “crown” on top. Only one in 250,000 Saguaro grow a crest like this, so seeing one was a real treat of a lifetime.

Prost!

We spent our last night with our charming hosts celebrating the good life at a German restaurant called “Murphy’s Haus.” Great food, and they even had live oompah-pah music. We felt like we were back at Oktoberfest! What a fantastic visit, and we are not done yet, since Kathy and Jim will be joining us in Santa Fe for more good times!