pre-raft road trip...pheonix, sedona, & flagstaff, AZ

Pheonix, Sedona, & Flagstaff, AZ

prior to our grand canyon raft trip some of us had the chance to explore a bit in phoenix, sedona, and flagstaff, AZ.  (may17 & 18, 2008)  in Phoenix, we visited F.L.W's Taliesin West, then the creative, elegant chimes of Cosanti (recommend this gem for sure).  must have been a bit weary when we were driving aimless, because i definitely appreciate Cosanti more now then i did when i was there.  'tis a fine thing to see such raw artistic freedom being exercised with serious rigor... even if the context around the facility has changed to a really strange floridian-like suburbia.

...on north to sedona.  sedona is located a hop & skip south of flagstaff, our orientation rendevous for the g.

c. raft trip.  we decided to bunk there the night before to check out the vortex landscapes surrounding the city of sedona.  the local oak creek brewery supposedly had a few good offers as well.  after bunking in with claudia and dan lewis, we woke and negotiated a bell rock vortex hike just outside town.  didn't manage to catch any memorable energy spiral or twist spirits... but found many trees which had been obviously wound up over a peiod of time...left confused.  The landscape reminded me a bit of red rock Arches N.P. with much more in the way of lush green stuff...vegetation.  The trails and landscape seemed perfect for a return mountain bike trip someday.  Never managed to get a town gallery walk in either... so there are many reasons to return to sedona again soon.

after walking bell rock, we decided to fly (driving with todd willsie is not unlike flying) north to the south rim of the grand canyon and meet up with claudia's buddy to get a quick tour.  some of the group had never been to the grand canyon's rim... i envied their first glimpse.  we could feel the breeze pick up and heard through locals that some snow was forecast for the north rim...somewhere in the middle of the following week.  this completely floored us!  we couldn't believe that snow could make it to the grand canyon in the middle of may, but it was explained to us that spring was the most unpredictable season of all for the canyon.  we didn't anticipate the snow to reach the river...

we would later be proven wrong.