Arizona 2008

Wow, what a great trip! Where do I start, how about in chronological order?

Thursday
Evening I flew into Phoenix to go to Gina's. I met Gina on a programming contract job back when we both contracted at The Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. I got a rent car, and luckily Gina and her husband, Larry's, house is easy to get to from the airport. Plus one of my co-workers let me borrow his Garmin GPS. That thing was pretty cool. I had Mapquest.com directions as back for the trip and so did Gina, and the Garmin was on the money. We got lost once we got to Old Bisbee where we were going to stay because it was dark and we couldn't see the street signs.

Friday
Gina and I got up and headed to the first stop on our trip to Southern Arizona, Kartchner Caverns State Park. http://www.pr.state.az.us/Parks/KACA/index.html If you go, tour the Rotunda/Throne Rooms like we did. The Big Room's claim to fame is all the bats, and it's only open when the bats are there. The Rotunda/Throne rooms are open year round. You must make reservations for any tour your take. They were very strict in that you really couldn't take anything in with you as they did not want anything falling out of your hands and rolling off. With humidity the cavern was 85 degrees. We walked through a light mister so the lint on our clothes would be dampened enough to stick to us and not the formations. Plus they washed the floors every night to remove the dirt and stuff we brought in on the bottom of our shoes. Be sure and read the story about how this cavern was discovered. http://www.pr.state.az.us/Parks/KACA/index.html
http://www.pr.state.az.us/Parks/KACA/tour_info.html

Next we headed on to Tombstone. We probably got there about 5:30pmish. Lots and lots of souvenir shops. Not much going on at that time, but it was Helldorado Days. We didn't know what that was. I had to look it up on the net when I got home. http://www.helldoradodays.com/
"In July 1881, a disgruntled miner writes the Tombstone Nugget newspaper stating that instead of finding their "Eldorado" of riches, many men ended up washing dishes or other menial jobs, finding instead, their "Helldorado". The term stuck. Helldorado is Tombstone's oldest festival celebrating its rip-roaring days of the 1880's. Helldorado, started in 1929, is sponsored by Helldorado, Inc. whose membership is composed of residents in Cochise County. "

The OK Corral we guess was locked up, you will see what I mean when you see my pix. The courthouse closed at 5pm. So we couldn't go inside.

We got a little lost trying to get to Bisbee Inn http://www.bisbeeinn.com/index.htm. We didn't realize we would arrive in the dark. Bisbee Inn website acted like they have plenty of parking. Oh yeah, 7 spots designated for 20 rooms. So we checked in, then parked the car in some paid public parking of which no one was there to say how much $ and to collect. So we went to Santiago's http://santiagosbisbee.com/ from a co-worker of mine's recommendation. The food was fabulous. I had Green Corn Tamales. I thought the mesa would be green, but it was yellow corn and chopped green chiles in freshly made tamales. After dinner we walked by the real estate office that our inn keeper said we could park in front of all weekend with no worries. We found a vacant spot, so I stood there while Gina went across the street to get the car. So the car stayed there until we left Sunday a.m.

Saturday
We had a reservation to tour the Queen Mine Tour. It was another good tour...It used to be the one of the largest copper producing mines in the world. Our tour guide retired from there, and the mine closed in 1975. http://www.queenminetour.com/history.php It was within walking distance of where we were staying, nice. You'll see from the website how we sat single file in the train to take us 1500 feet below.

Afterwards we spent time walking on the "main drag" of Old Bisbee...lots of shops for antiques and souvies. We had a good sandwich at the Bisbee Coffee Company http://www.bisbeecoffee.com/.

For dinner, where else but Santiago's again. We were not disappointed. I had the chile rellenos this time, lip smackin good! Funny thing, Friday was pretty crowded in this tiny restaurant, but Saturday we got right in.

A friend of mine and a friend of Gina's recommended staying at the Copper Queen Hotel http://www.copperqueen.com/. We kinda wished we had. Our place was like a boarding house, we had our room with a private bath. There was a communal kitchen and tv room. I thought the cereal would be in those small individual boxes, but nope those big boxes just like home, yikes. We made coffee which was fine, but no directions on how much coffee to use. You could hear people sneeze and stuff, but I am sure they heard us gabbing and laughing... We walked through the lobby of the Copper Queen, beautiful dark wood in the lobby.

Sunday
We were off to the 300 year old San Xavier Mission outside Tucson. http://www.sanxaviermission.org/ They spent 7 years restoring the inside. Wait until you see my pictures of the inside. They were doing restoration on the outside so you will see some scaffolding. This mission is in the middle of no where.

We headed back to Gina's house.


Monday
I am off about 1.5 hours north to Sedona to visit with Steve and Carol. I met both of them back in 1996 when Steve facilitated a new book group at the Unity Church on Greenville Ave. The first time I went to Sedona was in 1997 with Steve, Carol, myself and 3 others from our book group. In 2004 Steve's book "Row, Row, Row Your Boat: A Guide for Living Life in the Divine Flow" was published. http://www.rowrowrow.com/
The one other time I visited Sedona was in 1998 when Gina and I went.

We headed out to West Fork http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/sedona/west_oak_creek.html in search of changing of the tree leaf colors. My pictures didn't come out dark enough so the color is washed out but you can still see the yellow, oranges, red and green. It was beautiful especially coming from Texas where the leaves are pretty much green until Thanksgiving weekend where there's enough wind then they all blow off the trees.


Tuesday
In the morning before Carol was off to work her and I went to the Chapel of the Holy Cross http://www.chapeloftheholycross.com/store/ in Sedona to sit for a bit Then we went to two cool book/gifts stores to shop, but I didn't see anything I could live without this time.

While Carol went to work in the afternoon, Steve and I went to sit on Bell Rock which you could see from their backyard. Bell Rock http://www.sedonadrivetours.com/1-bellrock.htm is also one of the energy vortexes in Sedona. We found us a place to sit on the back side of the rock so you couldn't hear all the vehicular traffic from the road next to it. While sitting there I asked for a sign of the energy on Bell Rock, and we got 3 pretty good gusts of wind. I think Steve got a good nap out of it too, but he does remember the gusts.


Wednesday
After Carol got off work, we had lunch, then headed to Cathedral Rock http://www.sedonadrivetours.com/2-cathedral.htm, another energy vortex in the area. I really liked this place. We sat by a babbling brook, read our books, and relaxed.


Thursday
Carol and Steve had two beautiful dragonfly paintings by artist, Bob Ichter http://ichter.com/.
Per Steve "We wanted a big painting, but could only afford the small one (single dragonfly), and those are the only small paintings he has ever done . . . and they were only available during the time that Carol wanted to gift me with something.
Then, after Carol told Bob about her dragonfly experience (at the grave of someone with the same name as her mom), we established a personal relationship with Bob . . . which motivated him to give me a discount on the big dragonfly painting (that he painted last October here in Sedona)."

It's back to PHX to catch my afternoon flight back home. I didn't want to rush and take an earlier flight back.


Friday
Back to work. I didn't want to take today off. I am saving the rest of my time off this year for December.

TRIP PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/thomtxt/Arizona2008?authkey=AVe9X6AdTaU#slideshow