The red rock cliffs of Sedona glow at sunset. This is what RV boondockers do instead of watching the Evening News. A few feet from camp:
I've never actually visited Sedona. I cling to my geo-bigotries as sedulously as the old mining town of Jerome does to the side of Woodchute Mountain. I went into Jerome expecting to be turned off by the tourist kitsch, but actually it's only the main buildings along tourist central that are over-restored.
I took the dogs on a short hike, right from town. I was in a foul mood, primarily because of van maintenance problems. But to make it worse, Coffee Girl, my new young dog, disported herself right up to the limit of my patience. And to finish it off, Jerome is irritating to a mild claustrophobe.
And so, with all the odds stacked against us we stumbled along the volcanic rubble, my most-hated geologic layer. It had taken four attempts to find this miserable, gnarly road.
It went through a remarkable residential neighborhood, barely visible from the main highway. Most of the funky wooden houses were lived in. They weren't even painted, and the wooden siding was weathered by Arizona's sun and aridity into the color of a gray/brown cat.
The yards, if small cliffs full of stickers can be called such, were full of esoterica evocative of the old mining days. Such junk was charming as a part of someone's home, although it wouldn't interest me in a tourist shop.
There was one more frustration--a dead end. But that was fine since I was heartily sick of the volcanic rubble. By the time we returned to the malfunctioning van the dogs were tired, and I had been soothed by this little neighborhood. It--or the hiking--had somehow conquered all my grouchiness. And the dogs were finally well behaved.
