Diana, Lenny and I drove up to Sedona today - wow, it was gorgeous. But I’ll get to that in a bit…

First we stopped by Montezuma’s Castle, one of those Native American cliff dwellings. It was built by a tribe called the Sinagua, but European settlers assumed it was the work of the Aztecs, and misnamed it accordingly. The structure actually turned out to be kinda small (just 20 rooms) and tourists weren’t allowed inside, so that was a little underwhelming.

The highlight of that sidetrip, oddly enough, was a tame squirrel (probably fed too much by tourists) who hung out near us for a bit. Lenny saw him and excitedly began shouting “mouse, mouse!” When Mouse (I’ve decided that’s his name) wandered off, Diana and I had to stop Lenny from calling for him: “Mouse? Mouuuuuuuse?” As we left I helped Lenny wave “Bye-bye, Mouse!” in the general direction of the park, which seemed to satisfy him.

And then we headed to Sedona. Ahhh, Sedona. Imagine a small but bustling city built in the center of the Grand Canyon, and you might begin to get a picture of what this place is like. Dazzling pine-studded rock spires in a rainbow of whites and reds on all sides, and highways running within a hundred feet of their bases. It was civilization and nature merged, and it was magnificent.

Sedonans have made considerable effort to preserve the beauty of the landscape, even going so far as to make ordinances that require buildings and signs to blend in with the surroundings. I doubt that I shall ever see a McDonald’s with cactus-green arches anywhere else.

Evidently I’m not the only person who thinks the place is magical. New age-types believe the place is filled with “vortexes” that soothe the body and mind. As such, the place is overrun with hippies. There are crystal shops and “healing centers” everywhere. I saw a guy with shoulder-length hair and a tunic carrying an acoustic guitar near the downtown area, and a group of grown men and women sitting Indian-style in a circle on a lawn elsewhere (doing I know not what).

Anyway, we managed to avoid all of that lot, and had a great drive through and around town (though I cursed the fact that I left my camera at home). We stopped at a cool outdoor souvenir shop with its whole premises covered in trees, and bought a crystal to add to the collection in Judy’s window. Then we stopped in the hillside Javelina Cantina for dinner, and watched the sunset turn the red mountain behind us even redder. When we finally emerged at dusk there were a dozen bats flying overhead. Diana tried unsuccessfully to show me her trick of getting them to swoop after a rock she threw in the air, but I was happy just to see them (I’ve never seen bats in the wild, believe it or not).

All in all, an excellent trip, and one I’ll remember for a long time. From now on, I’ll probably take anyone who comes to visit me in Arizona to Sedona. We don’t need no stinking Grand Canyon.