Sedona Day 3

After our exciting adventures through the wind and sand on day 2, we decided to stay near Sedona on day 3. We took the morning a little easy to give V and me both some time to get some work done, and then we went on a jeep off road tour of the red rocks. Many of the pictures are crooked because they were taken while bouncing around the back of the jeep. Our driver was a guy named Rusty, and I wish I had a picture of him. He was a real cowboy. He wore leather chaps over his jeans, a bandana, collared shirt with a rugged jacket, and of course cowboy boots and a hat. He also had one of those pull yourself up by the bootstraps life stories. He was born in Alaska and lived in a tiny log cabin with his parents where he did things like dig a 40’ well. At the age of 11 he ran away and lived with the Native Americans up there. They put him to work immediately in their fish selling productions. Eventually later in life he drove a truck around the 48 states, was an electrician, managed people’s ranches, and now he’s a “prospector” which really means treasure hunter. He’s retired three times but hates it so he drives these jeep tours and maintains all of the jeeps for the company that he works for. he was very knowledgeable about the history, flora and fauna of the area. Also, somewhere along the way he managed to get married and have 11 kids. A couple years ago his wife left him, and he has since remarried. Very exciting life story. Anyhoo, on to the pictures…

Vikram, Mom, and Dad on the Jeep. So far the ride has been fun but not too crazy. We were still on paved roads.

And we’re off the road! Still though, this part of the dirt road wasn’t too bad. There were a few bounces here and there, but there wasn’t enough to really upset anyone…yet.

The Indians used the outer bark of this tree to make mats and baskets.

Yucca plant, the fibers of which are also useful for weaving, and parts of it can be eaten.

Green Agave, near its death it sprouts this tall stalk that can grow at a rate of up to 3 inches/day. Also at this time it condenses all of its sweetness into its bulbous base. Agave is naturally very sweet, about 22% sweeter than sugar, and its a lot better for you than sugar.

Prickly pear cactus…useful for a lot of things. The center is what is used as food, in lotions, soaps, jellies, etc. Apparently its lightly sweet, but nowhere near as sweet as agave.

We went down this huge hill over a bunch of rocks. Luckily all of us were wearing our seatbelts. Had we not been, we would have heat the roof many times, if not fallen out.

Mom’s reactions were the best! We always knew we were about to go over some really awesome, rough terrain when Mom said “DON’T LOOK!” (The rational being that if you don’t look you can tell your mind that the road isn’t really that bad.)

The road was really really rough. V and I thought the ride was awesome!

We got down at this point to take some pictures. Dad was so excited to get to the edge of the lookout for a good picture that he didn’t notice he was running across loose rocks. He fell really hard and got hurt fairly badly. It put him out of commission for the afternoon, but he healed well overnight.

This is picture Dad was so anxious to take.

The view we had was AMAZING. I know I keep saying that, but seriously these “red rocks” make you believe in god; they’re that awe-inspiring.

We couldn’t take any more pictures because the ride got too rough for me to feel comfortable holding the camera in my hand. After the tour, we dropped dad off at the hotel to rest and went in search of lunch. You’d think that wouldn’t be so hard in the afternoon in a tourist town, but we went to three restaurants, all of which were closed. One of them was even a Quizno’s, which was supposed to be open according to the hours listed on the door. Eventually we found food and came back to the hotel to rest a bit with dad. In the late afternoon, Mom, V and I went on a drive through southwest Sedona. The houses we saw there were really awesome. There are no pictures of that, though, because I was driving.