3 Days in Sedona, AZ
It seems that this is becoming a travel blog and that was not my intention when I started this website. I do like to travel and I have started taking more trips than I have in the past, but I don’t go out to restaurants, I don’t really drink except for an occasional mixed drink when I’m on vacation, I don’t go out to the movies, or clubs, or anywhere really. When I’m in everyday life I prefer to go to work and then go home. That’s it. As a result, I’m able to travel more since I don’t really do things that result in spending a lot of money, particularly when you live in a big (and overpriced) city like NYC.
I prefer to arrive somewhere in the late afternoon or sometime in the evening so that I can clean the room (if you’ve been reading this blog or you know me personally you know that I always have to thoroughly clean the room with Clorox wipes and I also bring my own towels), unpack and just relax a bit and maybe get to bed early so that I can start fresh the next day. I flew into Phoenix and then took one of the Groome Transportation (highly recommended and very reasonably priced) shuttle buses to Sedona. Groome has shuttle buses that go to other areas of Arizona and I was very satisfied with the service. I got to Sedona when it was still light outside so since they hadn’t served anything to eat on the plane and I hadn’t eaten anything at the airport in New York since my flight left very early in the AM, I decided to hold off on the cleaning and unpacking and go to get something to eat. I went to Javelina Cantina because I’d heard good things about it. The wait for a table was at least 30 minutes so I decided to just get the food to go and bring it back to the hotel. The food was good because I was hungry but not someplace I’d go back to. Maybe I’m just picky but I didn’t think it lived up to the hype.
The next morning I had breakfast at the hotel. It was included with the room and usually those types of breakfast are hit or miss but this one was surprisingly decent and the coffee was good as well. My first stop of the day after breakfast was Chapel of the Holy Cross. My Uber driver was really cool and had lots of interesting facts and tips about things to see in Sedona. The line of cars leading up to the church was backed up for about 10 minutes, so my Uber driver rolled down the back window and said this view made for some really interesting shots and he was right. I’ll talk more at the end about using Uber and car services to get around Sedona at the end of this post.
As you can see, the scenery in Sedona is just incredible. You get these fantastic views of the mountains and the red rocks wherever you go. The whole thing made for a very peaceful time in Sedona which I’ve heard is what Sedona is famous for along with the energy vortexes. Normally when I go on vacation I go to big cities because for one there is more to do and for another it is very easy to get around, particularly by walking. I think I only walked one place in Sedona which was definitely unusual for me. This time around I wanted to go somewhere just to focus on peace and relaxation.
I liked how Chapel of the Holy Cross had a mailbox with the chapel painted on it. It was just a cute detail that I noticed. The church inside was very small but because of how well known it is, especially because of blogs, Instagram, YouTube, etc. it was also very crowded. I am not particularly religious but I appreciate beautiful architecture so I wanted to visit it while I was there. I was disappointed to see that people didn’t appear very respectful. Instead of treating it as a place of worship, you had people being loud, acting silly, etc. I’m not surprised, just disappointed.
While in Sedona you definitely have to check out Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village. There are a lot of cute (but expensive) shops to wander in and out of and lots of interesting looking places to eat. The weather in Sedona was beautiful when I was there. Slightly chilly in the morning, warm but not hot or humid in the late morning and afternoon into the evening, and then cool again at night.
Art and art galleries are everywhere in Sedona and it really adds to the charm of the place. The landscaping at Tlaquepaque is also beautiful.
At this point I was a bit hungry so I decided to check out a few places and decided to go with Oak Creek Brewery. I didn’t want to eat too much and then not be able to eat dinner later so I just went with an order of onion rings and a margarita (I believe it was prickly pear flavored). They definitely didn’t skimp on the alcohol so that’s always a good thing especially considering how much an alcoholic beverage costs. The food was just meh. The batter on the onion rings weren’t particularly crispy and the onion inside was a bit mushy. The staff was very friendly and accommodating.
I am a solo traveler. I like being alone. I do not like traveling with other people (or socializing in general). One thing that drives me crazy as a solo traveler is that restaurants always want to sit you at the bar. I hate those seats. I do not want to have to climb into a chair and have my legs dangling and have to hold my bag in my lap with one hand and my fork in the other, not to mention my camera which I always have with me when I travel. Please stop doing this! I always have to ask not to be seated at the bar. I had to do it in Salem and I had to do it here. I even tell them that I will wait if it’s a space issue. So far I’ve never had any issues with this but if there was ever any pushback I would just go somewhere else. I’m always perfectly polite because I hate people who are rude to people in the service industry and honestly, why would you want to piss off someone who handles your food? I understand that restaurants want to make as much money as possible so a single person at a table (even a small one) is a waste in their eyes. To me, my money is as good as anyone else’s. I will not sit at the bar with those high ass stools. Period. If that makes me difficult or a princess, oh well then.
I walked around Tlaquepaque a bit more and then I had to head out to see the famous McDonald’s with the only blue arches in the world. Apparently the city had to get special permission to have the arches blue instead of the traditional color because they felt it would clash with the red rocks and orange-y tones in Sedona. How true that is is anyone’s guess. Either way, it’s an interesting thing to see while in Sedona. I was going to go to an actual restaurant for dinner for my first full day in Sedona but I was seriously exhausted at this point so I got some McDonald’s and headed back to the hotel for the night.
I prefer landscape orientation to portrait but for certain shots (like this one), it just makes more sense. I’m also getting back into black and white shots as well as street photography. I have been on and off with street photography since 2005. I don’t like the aggressive, in your face style that was popular on YouTube for a while. I prefer more shots where you can’t see the person’s face and where the person is a part of the picture rather than the main focus of the picture. I actually didn’t intend to have a person in this shot but he was gathering up the chairs and while I was waiting for him to walk away I realized I liked the shot with him in it, so I decided to take the picture and see how it came out. I kind of like this one.
The next day I decided to go to Hillside Sedona. There aren’t a ton of murals in Sedona but the ones that are there are really cool, like this one. I’m a sucker for angel wings murals even though I usually don’t get to have my picture taken in front of one except for this past August when my mom and I went to Nashville for my birthday.
This was also a really cute spot to take pictures and I imagine it looks even nicer when it starts to get dark so the neon of the sign is more vibrant.
From Hillside Sedona I then headed over to Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art. It was interesting but not really my kind of art.
So I mentioned that I would talk about taking Uber and car services while I was in Sedona. It was a bit of a hassle which I expected although not as bad as I had been hearing about. I didn’t get to do one hike which was incredibly disappointing. I intended to at least go to Bell Rock but after waiting 30 minutes to even get connected to an Uber driver and then have him be another 30 minutes away, I was done. From what I hear, the popular trails in Sedona (Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Devil’s Bridge, etc.) have limited parking and the lot is always full. I didn’t want to spend most of my time trying to find parking or waiting for people to leave, so I figured it would be easier to take Uber/car service to get around. It wasn’t but I’m not sure renting a car would have been any better for the reasons I mentioned. I know the Sedona Shuttle goes to popular trailheads but it only runs from Thursday to Sunday and funnily enough I was only there from Sunday (evening) and leaving on Thursday. For those reasons I was disappointed that I didn’t get to truly experience all Sedona had to offer but what I did experience was definitely a pleasant experience, so the car situation is definitely something to keep in mind when planning your own Sedona trip.
