Will went up to the Activities Center and played World of Warcraft (his current obsession), and then we played a round or two of pool. We hung around, read, watched TV, and generally did nothing!
There were only two things that had to get done on that day
- I needed to find a good trail ride for the family, and sign us up for it sometime before we left. This was the one activity that all the kids in the family wanted to do. Tom did a lot of riding as a child, and the children have all also had riding lessons (some more than others). I have the least experience in the family, but I was game! Anyway, I was able to get us on a 1 1/2 hour trail ride at 9am the following morning with High Mountain Stables, located about 40 minutes away in Mormon Lake.
- My husband ended up spending much of the day talking to our lawyer in Western Massachusetts, where we are working on selling a property (very long story!). After 2 years on the market, we had gotten a good offer about a month before. However, due to a very long set of complications, we still did not have a contract. Of course, their lawyer finally sends us a contract while we are on vacation! Tom had some questions about it that needed to be resolved, so there was quite a bit of back and forth about it.
We ended this very quiet day by seeing Get Smart at a local cinema. We are all big Steve Carrell fans! The kids all really enjoyed it; I thought is was only OK. I was a big fan of the TV series as a child, and I thought the movie wasn't nearly as funny. We all tried to go to bed quickly since we had to be up early to get to the trail ride by 9am.
We got up by about 7:30, and were out of the house by 8:25. We were running a bit late, since they wanted us to be a few minutes early to fill out the paperwork. The drive to Mormon Lake was another lovely Arizona landscape. This time we were driving by high mountain lakes and forests. We missed our turn and did arrive a few minutes late, but it was fine. We filled out the paperwork and were assigned our horses.
Here are some shots of us on our horses (I'm missing since I'm the photographer!):
They lined the horses up in a particular order (it seems some horse like/don't like each other), and we went off. There was one other family on the trail ride with us. We went up the mountain into the beautiful forest of Aspens and Ponderosa pines. It was very quiet and relaxing. The horses were obviously very used to this trail, and did not demand much input from their riders. At one point, Ally's horse shied and bolted a tiny bit - she handled it very well!
Here are a few photos from horseback:
And one that the "cowboy" in charge took of us:
The two "rules" of the trail were that we all needed to have a good time, and we couldn't let our horses eat while we were riding. If the horse we were riding snagged some grass, we either needed to sing a song, or we needed to kiss the horse at the end. Annika's horse was apparently always eating (they gave Annika a crop so her horse would behave!), and she sang more than once. Ally, however, preferred to kiss the horse instead:
We all had a great time, and I highly recommend the experience. We spent a few minutes visiting little petting zoo at the next-door Mormon Lake campground, and then got back in the car. I had originally thought we would go straight to Sedona from horseback riding, but the family preferred to head home first. This ended up being a pretty good idea, since we were all in long pants and hot shoes for the riding, and it was nice to clean ourselves up and change.
I can't remember what we did for lunch, so we probably just grabbed food at the condo. I do know that everything took longer than we expected, and we ended up heading down to Sedona much later than planned.
The drive from Flagstaff to Sedona down the Oak Creek Canyon is magnificent - and a little scary! The switchbacks are incredibly tight, and you are going down about 2000 feet in elevation in about 15 minutes of driving. You literally drive down into the famous red rocks of Sedona. As you get near the bottom of the canyon there are some amazing campgrounds, houses and resorts. We would love to stay there someday. We went by Slide Rock State Park, and would have gone in but the parking lot was full - so we kept on going into the town of Sedona.
Sedona is an an amazingly beautiful spot, but the town itself was a disappointment to me. It was so commercialized and gift-shoppy! It was a lot like a mall, but with more crystal shops. We got ice cream and did some shopping (the kids saw lots of things they liked), but unfortunately it was very hot, and just the sort of place that I hate, so I ended up getting very impatient and cranky.
Here are some photos of the beautiful rocks of Sedona:
We stayed as long as we could stand it, but we still wanted to get to Slide Rock State Park. This is a place where Oak Creek forms a natural swimming hole and water slide, and looked like a lot of fun. We got there at about 5pm, and it would be open until 7 so we had a few hours to enjoy it - there is a $15 fee per car to get in, so we wanted to make it worthwhile!
It really was a lot of fun! However, the rocks are really, really slippery - at one point I almost landed on my head. Also, when you go down the "water slide" it is very tough on your butt! We all wore pants over our swimsuits to minimize the damage.
There was a nice swimming hole and Will & Hannah both jumped in:
This is Tom & Annika going down the slide:
I keep saying this a lot, but it was also an extraordinarily gorgeous spot:
I had forgotten to bring towels (whoops!), and we were all somewhat tired from our long day, so near the end of our time there a bout of crankiness set in. There were actual tears and sulking! So we dragged our tired & bruised selves back to the car and headed home. Annika claimed that she was so sore she couldn't sit on her rear end, and when we got back she took a nice long jacuzzi bath.
After a nutritious dinner of KFC & Taco Bell, we went to bed. Only one more day before we have to go.
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