Sedona: The third time!

i40 just before the continental divide

Leaving Sante Fe we drove past an RV wash and decided the RV needed to look clean in case anyone looked at it. That night we stopped again at Sky City Casino and spent some time pouring boiling water into our grey water tank in an attempt to unfreeze it. This combined with a wire up the outlet pipe eventually allowed us to drain our near full tank. The next morning we woke to a few inches of fresh snow, so the chance of the RV staying clean were minimal once we hit the interstate. From Sky City the i40 rises 7300 ft to go over the continental divide, it wasn’t long before the snow resumed and started to get worryingly heavy. All of a sudden traffic on the interstate was very thin, trucks

xmas photo opportunity just off the i17

had slowed down and the left hand lane looked very dodgy for driving. The blessing was that there was no wind and it was all quite scenic. Before long we were up and over the pass, and the snow promptly disappeared. Arriving at Flagstaff for the night there had been no snow, even with it’s 6500 ft elevation. That changed overnight and we woke to six inches of fresh snow that was still falling. After a quick trip to Safeway for supplies we headed down the hill to Sedona. Fiona suggested we should take a Christmas photo of us in the snow, so we promptly jumped off the i17, found a perfect location and set up the tripod. Lucky we did because not long after the snow disappeared at 5000 ft. We arrived in Sedona late morning to a sunny and cool day. After all the snow driving the RV was filthy again! That afternoon Rob went for a quick ride on trail that was WET with the dirt offering velcro type grip. A real treat after the very dry and loose dirt that we rode two weeks earlier.

Rain equals wet rock, just trust that there is some grip

We were hoping that the only other Australian RVing family we had met all year, might turn up and spend Christmas in Sedona as well. Symi got her wish and the next evening Brett, Suzie, Maddy and Zac turned up and camped next to us. Rob was happy as well as Brett is a very keen mountain biker and great company on the trail. Of course you can always be braver on the technical Sedona rock when someone else is there. The next few days were spent with the boys riding and kids playing. Fiona and Suzie managed to talk frequently and escape for a few walks.

Kid's world in the Washington RV

 Christmas eve we managed a family walk on the Hangover Trail. On the way up the kids delighted in picking up the many sheets of frozen ice in the creek and smashing them on the ground, or heads! Rob had ridden this trail once in February, found the trail extremely intimidating and had not been

Climbing Hangover Trail

brave enough to go back since. Eventually Brett and Rob decided to ride the trail and spent plenty of time on Hangover picking the technical lines to bits and riding a few critical lines a few times. At the end they promptly re-rode the trail and developed a Hangover addiction, riding the trail like locals not tourists! After the Christmas Eve walk they rode the trail again. Then Christmas day managed to sneak in another lap which was to be Rob’s last ride in America. This would have to be one of the most technically challenging and fun trails ridden all year. In six months it was the first trail that Brett had re-ridden. Mountain bikers put this trail on your bucket list but it beware of its very justified double black rating and it is not for the faint hearted.

Some of the endless exposure on Hangover

Learning this section of descent on Hangover took some time
but was well worth the reward

Very brave single speed hardtail rider, cameraman (Rob)
found it more nervous watching than riding.

Crazy rock tech on Hiline, there is a sharp right
turn on the dirt or the choice of a large drop!

Christmas day came and Symi delighted in the many SMALL presents that Father Christmas delivered. Maddy was desperate to see snow on Christmas day, it did sleet for a little while but that was it. Maddy was to get her wish a few days later when a foot of snow fell on Sedona, very rare. The kids spent the day playing with their new toys and we had a game of ladder golf. Late in the afternoon we had a joint Christmas dinner of lamb (hard to find in the states) and baby back ribs with the Washingtons.

Top of Hangover, soaking up the vortex energy.

Getting a lift with Ken in his 57 Chev which is his daily driver.

RV Xmas dinner and great company.

Boxing day it was time to hightail it the 750kms back to Anaheim, our longest drive in a day all year. Fortunately we had been inundated with interest in the RV and had many seemingly serious buyers lined up to view the RV the day after.

Symi nailing a rock section on Grand Central

RV xmas, home made advent calendar and stocking.

Snowboarding in Sipapu and lunch in Santa Fe

Ready for powder

Sipapu has to be the cheapest snow you can find. Total cost per day for a hotel room and ski passes for three people on a week day (before Dec 18) – wait for it US$66! Yes that’s right $22 a person. It is not a big resort but has just enough to keep Rob happy and to challenge Fiona and Symi. If you book a hotel room for the night it is $44 for up to four people and you get one lift ticket free. Symi as a fifth grader snowboards free every day and Fiona pays $22 for a lift ticket. They do a lot of snow making here and pride themselves on being the first to open and the last to close. It is a family run resort and all the staff are very friendly saying hello and giving Symi snowboarding tips. As you can imagine we were out on the snow within an hour of arriving.

Lego in the hotel room - bit warmer than the RV

Just like riding a bike for Rob

As we had all snowboarded at the beginning of the year the first day on the snow went well. Fiona and Symi stayed on the beginner slope for the first few hours but very soon we were all up on the lifts and testing our skills. On the third day, feeling they had their snowboarding legs back, Fiona and Symi decided to invest in a lesson for an hour. The instructor was excellent and we certainly felt it helped our snowboarding. Symi is so fast on the traverses now that Fiona loses sight of her very quickly. Rob started the week lapping Fiona and Symi down the main slope in two runs, but has now estimated it would take him 8 runs to catch us when we are at our fastest. Rob as usual got back up to speed very quickly and continued to improve daily. He does put in many more runs than Fiona although he is in danger of being equaled by Symi who has boundless energy.

On day five we had to move back into the RV for a couple of nights as the hotel was booked for the weekend. With the rumour circulating that powder was on the way from a storm in the west we booked the hotel again for Sunday night as the resort has no water available for RVs and we were feeling the need for a shower. Fiona hit the wall late Friday morning and started making mistakes due to tiredness. No such problem for Rob or Symi. After a long lunch break and some food Fiona headed back in the afternoon to find that things were no better. Time for a rest day on Saturday. As it turned out the powder forecast was strengthening so Symi and Rob decided to join her. Out with the slow cooker – beef in red wine for dinner, and onto the computer to write up three blogs in one day as we were a bit behind (too many hours in the snowboarding office).

By 5pm Saturday evening the snow started coming down!

Yeti foot prints?

Luckily Rob's bike is inside!

Sunday dawned with a lot of powder on the ground. We had waxed the snowboards the day before and were lined up at the lifts at 9am. We got to the top and there it was - the longed for powder. Rob was away and down the hill with very little adjustment. Symi was just a little slower and Fiona was down and buried in the powder with the memories flooding back about just how tiring powder is. Finally we all got it worked out and we had a fantastic day. Symi mastered the 360 by the end of the day and then next day helped Fiona remember how to do them. Sleep came very easily that night.

Symi doing 360's

We then had one more day on the snow. We only lasted the morning as to be honest we were all done in. Even Rob gave up before the end of the day. We had a fantastic week.

We had advertised the RV but unfortunately the wifi reception at the resort was non-existent for us with our hotspot and the resort wifi was extremely slow and only seemed to work first thing in the morning. We had a few people interested but nothing serious. It is hard to imagine that in a few weeks we will be home and no longer living in an RV.

We hit the road for Arizona with a stop in Santa Fe for lunch and a wander around. We felt we had to have Mexican for lunch and managed to find a recommended diner which we enjoyed. After a wander around the town we headed off towards Arizona. While we were in Santa Fe we connected to the Wifi to find we had lots of interest in the RV - Yay. We also found out that the Washingtons (the Australian family we met in Moab) were going to be in Sedona for Christmas. Symi was very happy with this news.

Santa Fe for Lunch

The snow followed us!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

to everyone

We can't wait to get back and see you all.

Albuquerque

Our first night in New Mexico was spent at a casino. That’s not like the Wallers! Well it is if there is a $20 powered site and an US$11.99 (half price for children) steak buffet. We were celebrating the end of Simone’s school year. We were all happy to get to the end and quite pleased with ourselves that we managed to complete all the work on time.

Symi happy have found Trinity

Next morning we drove to Albuquerque to meet up with Joanna, Chris and Trinity who we met in in Sedona. They had kindly asked us to stay for a couple of days at their house. After a bit of work levelling the RV on the sloping street we were plugged into power and Rob was ready to head off mountain bike riding with Chris. Symi had to wait a couple of hours for Trinity to get home from school but luckily for her Joanna very kindly played on the Wii with her while Fiona sent off the last of the school work to her teacher.

That evening we went out for Mexican which was great – a lot less cheese than you sometimes find. The girls were very happy to find out that all children get complimentary chocolate mousse. Feeling very full we drove into the centre of Albuquerque to see the famous river of lights. Every year the botanical garden puts in what must be thousands – if not millions of lights – and decorates a huge area. We would estimate it took more that 90 minutes to walk around it once. That evening Symi enjoyed a sleepover with Trinity leaving Rob and Fiona to sleep alone in the RV for the first time all year.

bit cold

On Saturday the boys did some more riding while the rest of us went for a walk in a nearby canyon which we all enjoyed. Unfortunately while Rob and Chris were riding, Chris’s car was broken into. There was very little in the car to steal – an empty bag, a t-shirt and a shirt. Sadly the clothes were Rob’s and he is still mourning the loss of his Whoops T-shirt from Bend in Oregon and his “Montana Man” shirt which he loved. All very pointless and expensive with an insurance excess of $500 for Chris and Joanna. In the evening after dinner we helped decorate the family Christmas tree which was lovely as our RV Christmas tree which was lovingly drawn and cut out by Symi certainly could not support any decorations! We do however have a homemade advent calendar and Christmas stocking which we hope will get some use.

Sunday saw Fiona doing some last minute cooking to stock the freezer before our planned week of snowboarding. Rob managed to sneak in one last ride before we headed north to Sipapu. Due to our late start we did not make it all the way that night but found a roadside RV park to stay. Next morning set off to Sipapu early for a longer than expected and very undulating drive through the high desert.

Next up Snowboarding.

Official Piffle Heads Up

January 31, you know where to go, you know who you are.

Featuring the return of the famous musician Mr Rick Twine.

Eastern Arizona

Homovoli State Park desert isolation

Dry one day, flooded the next.

Leaving Sedona we headed east towards New Mexico with a couple of stops planned. The first was a meteor crater just east of Flagstaff. Due to the craters location in low rainfall high desert, this is said to be the best preserved example of a meteor crater on Earth. The meteor hit 50,000 years ago with a speed of 26,000 miles/hr creating a crater 2,4 miles in diameter and 600 ft deep. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the crater and visitors centre. We were lucky that there was no wind as the previous day there were no tours of the rim as it was too windy. At times they record wind speeds of 190 kph on the rim. That evening we drove onto the Homovoli State Park to camp with power for $20 and enjoyed the beautiful desert solitude.

Very impressive meteor crater

Trying to take it easy, last photo of Rob's 'Montana Man' jacket
before it was stolen in Breaking Bad country.

The next morning we explored the 14^th century ruins left by the Anasazi people. The first site was next to the Little Colorado River and littered with broken pieces of 600 year old pottery. The next site, Homovoli II contained an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 rooms.  Speaking to the Ranger at the Visitors Centre we realised we should also explore the nearby town of Winslow that we had bypassed the previous day. Little did we know of the hidden gem of popular culture that we missed ‘Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me. Come on, baby, don’t say maybe I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me……’ After some photos and a tour of the local tourist shops, we walked to the highly recommended La Posada Hotel (1930) which was the last of the great Harvey/Santa Fe railway hotels. It was designed by the famous SW architect Mary Jane Colter, who was also responsible for many of buildings at Grand Canyon. Amazing the Hotel, in near ruins, was brought for $130,000 and then restored by the artist Tina Mion and her husband in the 1990’s. We spent an hour wandering around the hotel appreciating the vast amount of Tina’s art on display.

With rain threatening, the next day we headed to the Petrified Forrest National Park. 255 million years ago, at the height of the dinosaur era, this area of land was just 4ᵒ north of the equator and was a tropical rain forest. The trees fell and were washed into adjacent floodplains where a mixture of silt, ash and mud buried the logs. Silica seeped into the logs replacing the original wood tissues with silica and petrifying the logs. There was a good analogy of the Earth’s history at the Visitor Centre. If the life of the Earth was a year, then the dinosaurs appeared about mid-December and disappeared by the morning of Dec 27. Humans did not appear until 11.15pm on December 31 and recorded history represents the last half minute of the entire year. With this in mind our thoughts were that we should keep the predictions of the planet over the next period of time in perspective. We spent the afternoon dodging showers and walking the highlights of the incredible petrified trees. At times the landscape looked like a lumber yard, with logs lying around ready to be hit by a log splitter. Luckily there was some RV camping just south of the park where it cost $10 to plug into power for the night.

 

The next morning the rain had set in further and we drove to the northern end of the park. We passed numerous creeks that the previous day were dry and were now in full flow. There was a quick photo stop at the Tepees, hills showing distinctive colour bands that represent ancient layers of sediment deposited by a Triassic era river system. Next we crossed the modern interstate 40 and stopped at the old Route 66. The area north of the i40 consists of many viewpoints of the Painted Desert. The rain allowed us to see a rare glimpse of water flow in the desert. After a short wet walk it was time to leave and continue our drive towards New Mexico.

Get your kicks, on Route 66

PS. Rob admits to playing with the colour of some photos here.

 

Sedona again

Fall continues

 

It's raining leaves, there were none the night before!

After Grand Canyon and with some pleading from Rob, we returned to the MTB mecca of Sedona. We were also hoping things might warm up a bit. What we found was some brilliant weather and some very colourful cottonwood leaves. When we left Sedona early March the leaves were just appearing and it seemed as we went north we experienced an endless spring. Now we seemed to be experiencing an endless fall. Interestingly some trees just lose their leaves without changing colour. One morning we woke to leaves raining off a large tree across from our RV. The tree decided that the previous night was time to drop most of its leaves.

Looking north to Midgley Bridge from Huckaby Trail

Early morning panorama (thanks Joe) from Hog Heaven.

While Fiona and Symi recovered from our GC walk, Rob made the most of the trails revisiting some favourites from early in the year. As usual it doesn’t take long to run into like-minded riders. The first was Ken Drew, a local artist who specialises in bronze animal sculptures. It turns out we had visited his very nice gallery in the Tlaquepaqa Village before. Symi of course remembered because it was full of animals. Ken introduced Rob to two fantastic new trails that were soon to be sign posted, Western Civilisation and Last Frontier. Rob also rode with another rider Joe who makes snowboarding movies. Maybe Rob was harnessing the Sedona vortex energy to attract creative people?

Xmas lights

Hiline Trail descent, epic. The keen will spot an A and B line.

When the post-GC soreness resolved we did some family rides. Unfortunately for Fiona and Symi the conditions were challenging in places as the ground was very dry and loose. We revisited some trails we had ridden early in the year and the improvement in Symi and Fiona’s MTB skills was very noticeable. There was definitely less freaking out at anything exposed. Rob did expose them to the Mescal Trail that while stunning has a few don’t fall here zones that were quite rightly walked. On one family ride Rob managed to have his most painful fall of the year while cruising (always the way and a reason to always ride 100%!, Rob) he clipped a tree with the handlebars sending his right knee into a small sharp rock. The next day Rob managed to jar his back while pushing his bike up a trail and miss-stepping over a rock, resulting in ibuprofen fueled riding for a few days.

Gourmet Thanksgiving Diner and warm enough to eat outside.

Enjoying the last warmth of the sun at Creekside.

While in Sedona it was Thanksgiving and Fiona managed to produce a roast turkey dinner complete with stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce and roast vegetables from the RV. There were plenty of families enjoying a long weekend and plenty of food. Thanksgiving we heard is a food holiday! We met a family from Yuma Az and the dad sold RV’s for a living. Quickly handing him a beer Rob picked his brain for some very useful information on selling RVs! Next door to us was a family from Albuquerque NM who had an 11 year old daughter! It was playtime for Symi and Trinity. The dad Chris was a keen biker, unfortunately Rob due to his injured state didn’t ride with him in Sedona. We did however get an invite to stay with them the following weekend as we headed towards northern NM to try and find snow.

Symi and Trinity walking Hiline Trail.
 

At the end of our visit to Sedona earlier in the year we discovered the happy hour at the walking distance Creekside Restaurant. Having saved $170 by carrying one meal into Grand Canyon we decided to use this money on some happy hour drinks and tasty bar snacks. Try $3 for a boutique pint of beer, $3.70 for a Margarita and $8 for half a kilo of cooked prawns. Symi enjoyed the endless refill old fashioned lemonade and the fact that the barman just brought her the drink one evening without her asking.

Stunning late afternoon colour just outside RV park.

With our time fast running down it was time to head further east, visit our new friends in Albuquerque and do some more snowboarding. Symi was very excited.

Mescal Trail

Tech on High on the Hog