Click to Enlarge |
Click to Enlarge |
Highway 89A is gorgeous, and we only wish we had more time to pull over and take some pictures.
The terrain combines the red rock and clay of the Arizona desert with a lush green richness. Homes
and small mountain markets begin to appear, in a fashion similar to Big Sur or Topanga Canyon.
Ah! Sedona! A lively touristy New Age Mecca in the midst of lush desert paradise. Cowboys and
hippies living next to each other. Galleries, galleries, and more galleries tucked between psychic
readers and coffee shops. It's so very.
BIANCA: Sedona == Kokopelli artwork up the ass.
Click to Enlarge |
Click to Enlarge |
Our first stop was at the Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village (pronounced "Tlocky-pocky", for you
palefaces), which is a high-end outdoor mall with beautiful architecture and crunchy stone driveways.
By all means check out the pair of pictures surrounding this paragraph for a bit of Southwestern
flair.
Sedona contains within it a DANGER, however.
That danger is DONNA.
All we are doing is searching, in our hunger, for the El Rincon restaurant within Tlaquepaque,
and we approach what looked like an information booth. Seated within it is a Shirley MacLaine clone,
a loud redhead whose name you already know.
"Hi!!! What are your names?"
"I'm David, and this is Bianca. We're..."
(taking my hand) "You know... I KNEW your name was David. My brother's name
is David!"
We are trapped. Soon the horrible truth begins to dawn, as she tells us where the restaurant is;
HOWEVER she has a great coupon for this OTHER restaurant... and are we looking for a tour tomorrow?
She has this GREAT deal for these two tours (upon which she pulls out the Red Rock Jeep Tour and
Pink Jeep Tour, the two most touristy-trendy services available in this city, which is not the kind
of spiritual exploration we are looking for), and all we have to do is attend...
You know the rest. TIMESHARE. This short 90 minute seminar, free refreshments, we get a coupon
for this restaurant (OH, they've got GREAT appetizers, and pizza and burgers... another thing we
do not want while on vacation, for schist's sake) and the free tour: a $60 dollar value.
We said our hurried goodbyes and fled without signing up for anything, hungrier and weaker.
El Rincon Restaurante Mexicano completely made up for the terrifying encounter of the Red Kind.
Within the tasteful indoor or refreshing outdoor setting they have excellent margaritas (note the
impish expression on the Bianca face below), tasty salsa, warm chips with the right amount of sheen
and salt, and food which was a wonderful change from the gastrointestinal Gehenna to which Dave
was subjected the previous day. The flan is incredible.
We checked out a few galleries and bookshops, nervously glancing around corners in case SHE appeared
(Oooh, THERE you are!! Have you given any thought to...). We were much refreshed when we left
Tlaquepaque and to our hotel, the Desert Quail Inn, which is cute and on the southern side of
Sedona (Sedona is split into two parts, really, the northern part being the heavier tourist draw).
Driving around 89A we came across (okay, we were actually LOOKING for it) Lightin' Up in Sedona, a
friendly cigar place tucked into a high-end strip mall. We bought a large and fine bunch of
sophisticated smokes, then sat outside with glasses of San Pelligrino and Acqua Panna. Dave tried
a Partagas Black Label while Bianca savored the hell out of a perfectly humidified Bahia Gold
maduro robusto.
BIANCA: Que Bueno!
DAVE: Bahia Gold maduro. Bink cried.
BIANCA: Bahia Gold. It's like an old friend you haven't seen in a while, but you pick up where
you left off.
So after THAT knocked-on-our-asses siesta, we booked a vortex tour for the next day, grabbed a
couple of frozen smoothie goodies from the Ravenheart coffee shop, noticed that the cashier was
a knuckle-biter Britney Spears lookalike...
BIANCA: Oh, sure... if you LIKE that sort of thing...
... we went out again as the evening drew near. We did a little shop-walking and searches for
nicely esoteric music and bookstores, but there aren't as many as you might think and the stores
close early here. Quite the opposite from New Orleans; all the hippies and cowboys are early to bed
and rise. The view of the sunset on the rocks is almost unfair, and our photos do no justice to it.
Unfortunately Sedona has the fewest photos on our trip, especially of the various shops and
restaurants and galleries. We'll just have to go back, yes?
... we ordered the Ruffino 'Riserva Ducale' Chianti (dry, with a striking raspberry note that
wraps around the tongue... sorry, but this is where we get snobbish). The leek and spinach soup
was superb. Bianca enjoyed Atlantic salmon with vegetables and roasted garlic potato while Dave
really, really liked the penne con salciccia (penne with marinara, spicy Italian sausage, mushrooms
and peppers). The music was eclectic but rather neat: I don't believe we've ever heard a virtuoso
flamenco guitar version of 'Sultans of Swing,' nor a guitar-and-violin concerto version of 'House of
the Rising Sun.' We finished off one of the best dining experiences of our trip with a glass of
Warre's 20-year Tawny Port (superb, thank you, g'night!), and a single espresso (to Kevin: fairly
good, but no froth).
Back at the motel, Dave had a late-night smoke of his pipe (with a new leaf: an English Imperial)
out on the walkway in the warm Sedona air. A perfect end to the best day of vacation so far.
Breakfast on the trail! We set out going back south, to zip back down past Flagstaff to the last
outpost on our journey; Sedona. Kayenta almost looks pretty in the daytime... or at least it does
so because you're leaving it. We passed combinations of sandy scrub and red rock. Playing the Doors
seemed very appropriate.
A high-speed jaunt back down the 160 to the 89 takes us toward Flagstaff and the San Francisco
Peaks, seen at left.
