Arizona - Graduation & Sedona

May 2007

 

     

Cathrerine & I traveled down to Arizona for Marshall's graduation on May 23, 2007 and to spend some time in Sedona since we decided to take a very long weekend.   We arrived in Phoenix on Wednesday morning, had lunch with Marshall then headed to our hotel to clean up and go to graduation at the Wells Fargo Arena on the ASU campus.  

Marshall getting his diploma

The next morning we picked up Marshall and headed to Sedona for 3 days, staying at the Amara Resort & Spa in Uptown Sedona.   Our plan was to get up early to hike each day and then hang out at the pool the rest of the day during the heat.  This worked out very well.  The first morning Catherine and I went up to the West Fork of Oak Creek where Catherine did the 6 mile round-trip hike up the canyon while I fished the W.Fork about a mile and then fished Oak Creek itself.   The next morning we all went to Bell Rock to do the Bell Rock Trail and the Courthouse Butte Loop.  We managed to lose Marshall after he was climbing higher up on Bell Rock than we did.  We thought he got pulled into the Bell Rock vortex but ended up on the trail between the two formations instead of the loop around them both that Catherine and I were on.  All was well at the end as we met up in the parking lot.

View from Oaxaca Restaurant our first evening

Main Street Sedona	View from the pool at Amara
Hanging out poolside	Oak Creek at Amara
Walking to dinner	At the trailhead
On the Bell Rock Pathway	Nice ledge on Bell Rock
Bell Rock from the loop trail	Another rock formation in the distance
The last we saw of Marshall before he was taken by the vortex	Courthouse Butte