Arizona Road Trip ~ Flagstaff and Sedona

It's almost time to start heading back home.  (When you read this I will have already returned, but I need a few days to bring you the return ticket of my Arizona road trip.)  My last two days were spent in Flagstaff and Sedona.  Most of you are aware of the giant duststorm which hit Arizona (also called haboob) last week.  I left the following morning to drive up the mountain to Sedona and Flagstaff.  I took a detour off the interstate highway to go through Sedona and the dust from Phoenix's storm the night before had been swept over a hundred miles into the red rock country making photography a nightmare.  It was so hazy and dusty that after one or two attempts I put the camera away and decided I'd return the next day after the dirt had settled a bit.

Flagstaff is full of wonderful photo ops.  I lived there back in the 1970s when it was a bit quieter and not so much of a tourist attraction.  In fact, it was totally different then than now, although the influx of the summer tourists and winter skiers is good for the local economy.

You must have known that you would see a picture of the Coconino County Courthouse!  I actually worked here shortly after moving to Flag in 1972, but I don't remember it being such a beautiful building.  Of course it's been restored now and then it was just looked upon as an old-fashioned, dilapidated, musty-smelling building.  It's certainly one of the community's crown jewels.  The red stone Romanesque Revival structure was built in 1894, expanded in 1925, and restored in 2002.

After spending most of the morning walking around downtown Flagstaff, my longtime friend Sara (we've been friends since the 1960s) and I drove down the hill through Oak Creek Canyon to Sedona.  With vistas like these you can see how this place is one of Arizona's top tourist attractions, second only to the Grand Canyon.  Many believe the scenery is even more spectacular than the Grand Canyon.

We had lunch and walked around with the other tourists looking at all the sights and I felt like I had found a couple of friends when we walked past these two cuties.  Tracy of Life Is A Road Trip featured some of the stars of Javelinas on Parade on her blog back in May.  Aren't these just adorable!  Oh, speaking of pigs (or rather feral hogs) some of you continue to ask about our hog problem in Texas.  They struck again while I was visiting Arizona, this time within just a few short feet of the front door.  They managed to root all around some of our crape myrtle trees, and now we have that big ugly hog trap sitting right in eyesight of the front door!  But no hogs have been captured as yet.

After returning to Flagstaff, we drove up toward the Snow Bowl on Mt. Humphreys (9200 feet elevation) in a summer afternoon rainstorm, which is typical of the mountains during July.  It was a bit chilly up on the hill and the clouds and fog made for some dramatic skies.  I love Flagstaff!

Tomorrow:  On the road again. 

P.S.  Somehow the font got changed in the middle of the story and even though I've gone back into edit and changed the font THREE times, Blogger won't let me change it.  So sorry for the lack of continuity.