Sedona, AZ

{Tuesday}

Even with a late night of shooting, Scott still got up before me and was out the (van) door well before the sun came up.  I just couldn't drag myself out of bed and out to hike in the cold.  I mean, I eventually did, I just waited a little bit longer -- hoping for it to warm up.

It was a cold and cloudy start.  And windy up top.  But the view was still nice.  I had my doubts about sunrise though.  I thought the clouds might be too thick for the sun to come through.

But I was wrong. The sky really lit up!

     

Sunrise Selfie in Sedona:

To warm up (ie thaw out), we went to Starbucks and planned on working from there for awhile.  But the Christmas music -- it was just too much.  It was blaring, and Scott had a call to take, so we had to find a quieter spot with free wifi.

Wildflower Bread Company was the winner.  It was basically a Panera, just with a different name.  

Sweet potato and egg sandwich for breakfast

Of course the one day we were in Sedona, it rained.  I thought it never rained here - or in Vegas - and it has rained on us twice now!  

I guess the rain didn't really matter becuse we were stuck inside working most of the day anyways.  (I used Scott's laptop to upload some of my pictures, and really struggled to figure out the Mac!)

Finally, around 1 when the place really got busy for lunch, we took off for some Sedona adventures.

And...it rained again.  It didn't stop Scott, he still went on a 9 mile run on a trail, but I said no thank you to the cold and rain. Such a fair weather runner, I know.

I did eventually wonder around the area down a few trails, and did a little 20 minute cardio worout next to the van once the rain stopped.  Better than nothing I guess.

Also, I discovered what the funky smell was in the van!  We thought maybe it was Scott's shoes or socks (his feet smell!), but it wasn't.  And it wasn't in the fridge.  It was the dirty water!  I was crawling around on my hands and knees trying to locate the smell, and I took one wiff of the dirty water jug and about passed out!  Apparenty we need to dump that thing more often.  Lots of things to learn still in the van life!

Once Scott got back, we drove back through town, and decided to head up north towards Flagstaff.  He had to take one more work call for the day, so we stopped just on the edge of town at a nice little lookout.  Not a bad "office view" if you ask me!

I made a smoothie while I waited, but it was a quick call.  The drive continued...about 5 more minutes until I saw a river down in a ravine that looked too good to just drive by.  I hollered to pull over, and thankfully Scott istened. ;)

   ^^ I ran across the street to this little market to use the bathroom before hiking down to the river

Scott was already shooting by the time I made it.  He might complain sometimes about me wanting to stop all the time to take pictures, but I'm pretty sure he loves it just as much as I do.  (He just takes forever!)

My pictures sucjed, but Scott got some awesome ones with a 20 second exposure -- it looks like the water is moving in the picture!

Another Sedona selfie:

The sun was starting to go down, so we set off to make it up the mountain and in to Flagstaff.  There was a "Weather Advisory" warning flashing on a sign above the highway that got me a little nervous, and sure enough, it started lightly snowing the higher we got. (And the road was icy!)

We made it to the top just as the clouds really started to light up.  The best!!

There was way too much ice and snow for me to get too excited.  I don't know how many times I can saty it, but I came to Arizona for shorts and flip-flops!  None of this!

Thankfully we made it in to Flagstaff just fine, and hit not one, but TWO Wal-Mart's to try and find a little personal heater that runs off propane.  No luck at either.  The 20s is just too cold for me to sleep in!

Instead of cooking dinner, I voted for a little Indian restaurant right next to Wal-Mart.  When I'm hungry, I'm hungry NOW.  So I offered to pay just so we could get some food asap. (I didn't end up paying.)  You really can't go wrong with chicken tika misala and garlic naan. Mmmmmm.

The topic of conversation at dinner was all things Grand Canyon.  Scott was trying to convince me to hike all the way down to the river from the rim and back in one day -- depsite all the warnings on every web-site I pulled up to not attempt it.  We might have gotten in to it a little about me not trusting him and how I'm not on his same level of fitnes...blah blah blah...

We made one more stop at a Home Depot to try and find that dang space heater -- and no luck there either.  Guess it was just destined to be  cold night.

I actualy fell asleep on the drive, but Scott pulled the van in to a parking spot near the trail head for tomorrows hike.  I had to pee, of course, and there certainly weren't any bathrooms around.  So I said I was just going to hop oer the barrier on the side of the trail and go.  Scott warned me to not go too far past it because we were right on the edge of the canyon and it was a loooong ways down.  He tried to show me some map that had the color-coded elevation (where you could tell there was a drop off), but I wasn't awake and don't know how to read those things anyways.  So off I went, kind of heading his advice and only went a couple of steps over.  And sure enough, once my eyes adjusted to the night sky, I was squatting to pee on the very edge of the Grand Canyon.  About two steps further and I would have been over.  Not one of my smarter moments...

About 2 minutes later, a park ranger pulled up, lights flashing an all, and said we "absolutely could not camp" where we were parked.  Camping is only allowed in designated areas in national parks.  Not on the side of the road (see below).

So we drove off to find the closest campground, which was basically some flattened out spots in some trees.  No water or electricty or anything. And they still wanted to charge $18 to park for the night!  Well, lucky for us, the office was already closed because it was so late, and we were leaving early before they opened.  So being the rebels we are (ha!) we just parked for the night and didn't pay.  

Full day tomorrow!  Scott won and we are going to hike rim to river and back in one day.  Might be a little nervous...

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Oh, and who knew that sleeping in long underwear, sweatpants, hoodie (with the hood up), in a zero degree sleeping bag AND under a down comforter would be warm!?  I sure didn't.  But somehow, I actually slept that night and didn't freeze to death!  A van life win!