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Thursday, September 7, 2017

From Red Eyes to Red Rocks

I know, a 7am flight does not normally count as a red-eye; however, the new direction from Pearson airport is to show up 3 HOURS before a flight to the US earlier than 10am, so we woke up at 3am this morning. That's early! My eyes may have been a little red rimmed. It was only a little frustrating that we made it through to our gate with over an hour to spare.

I love small world stories, and we had one when we bumped into Jocelyn from the Ajax Running Free getting on the same flight as us, sitting in the same row! At Chicago, we transferred to separate connectors, and we were onward to Arizona....sleepy.


When booking our rental car, we had a little fun with the "special special" car option - a mystery when you book it. Our mystery car was - drum roll, please - a Kia Forte! Wow! A standard four-door sedan! In black, too! Oh well, it got us safely to our first destination, necessary to take the edge off the early wake-up call.




False enthusiasm for the car was soon replaced by real enthusiasm as the highway north from Phoenix offered us views of the scenic Arizona skyline:


Driving through Cottonwood (we had debated staying there, and happily drove right through to Sedona instead), I was so excited about Red Rock Country just around the corner. Southwest Inn at Sedona upgraded our room so that we'd have a view of one of the many mountain ranges dotting the landscape:



Dropping our stuff, we headed out for the first hike of the trip up Cathedral Rock.





A rugged, breathtaking climb at times, my legs started going wobbly. (We hadn't eaten in a while and hadn't slept much last night, so there were probably a few contributing factors...)






So worth it for the incredible views at the top!






I hate to admit it, but I am glad Mindy bought us a "selfie stick".



We followed the "path less traveled" on the wall down (aka, we inadvertently wandered off the path) but were rewarded with more beautiful sights:


There was some serious climbing. Honest...


Hungry and tired, we ate our fill of delicious food at the magical Mariposa Grill. I can't recommend this place enough.


22 hours after we got up in Ajax, we crawled into bed.

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