Arizona Day 5

Today we are leaving Sedona and heading to Scottsdale (Phoenix). We were greeted by some tourist going for the hot air balloon ride. We were considering to take that ride until we realize the cost ($198/person). Yikes...



Before we left Sedona, we went to have breakfast at Coffee Pot with the famous 101 omlettes. Although the restaurant name is Coffee Pot, the coffee wasn't that great. The food was very good tho...



The drive to Phoenix was interesting. The view along the hwy was something we never see with our own eyes before. Well, I had been to Las Vegas but didn't really remember because that was a long long time ago. Seeing all the cactus and the dessert view, I can understand why Stan missed Phoenix. ;)

We arrived at Scottsdale, Phoenix around 10:45am. As planned, today, we went for shopping. The first victim is Wallmart, then Costco, Bestbuy, then we went to Scottsdale Fashion Square. It's a very big mall. Then, we went to the outlet, yes, outlet. It's near the Phoenix Int airport and it's called Arizona Mills Mall. It's another big shopping place.


Then, we managed to take a picture of sky during sunset from our hotel. Tomorrow we are heading back to Vancouver. The End.

Arizona Day 4

Day 4, the temperature was higher than the day before. However, as you can see on the pic on the left, the water fountain still half frozen. It wasn't as bad as the day before.

So, today, we found a good breakfast place. It's called Coffee Pot. It has 101 different omelets. The food was good and there have other menu. It only opens for breakfast and lunch. Tomorrow, we're going there again before we head to Phoenix and of course tomorrow we will try the sausages ;)

We went to 2 different Indian ruins in the area. One is called Tuzigoot and the other Montezuma. Both ruins are from the tribe Sinagua. Unfortunately, this tribe disappeared and they belief there are no more. Tuzigoot as shown in the left and below are located on top of the hill.




The other Indian ruin is called Montezuma and it's located on top of the rock mountain as shown in the picture. It's quite interesting how this tribe actually more advance in that time technology and yet they are abandoned the building and disappeared.


After late lunch, we headed to see Boynton Canyon. Before we arrived to Boynton Canyon, we did a little off-road following some 4x4 but we couldn't keep up. At least I wasn't driving a sedan like other cars that went to the same off road and having problem to keep up :)


We got some good pictures by doing off road but too bad the weather wasn't really compromise. There were too cloudy.

Then at night we went to the Sedona uptown. Many stores were opened decorated with xmas light. This was the last night at Sedona. The funny thing was during the daytime when there are bright, I was having problem locating our resort. At night, I could easily spot it because of the only lights in the middle of hwy :)

Arizona Day 3

Today, we went to Grand Canyon. We couldn't wake up as early as we anticipate because I slept late due to spending too much time blogging :-p

Anyway, the day is a bit cloudy but mostly sunny. It's still cold. As we were driving on the curly road up to Grand Canyon (the elevation is approximately 7000 feet), we can see from the car temperature display, it just keep dropping to about 20 Fahrenheit (-6 Celcius). Sedona was about 34 Fahrenheit (1 Celcius) in the morning. The bottle of water that we put in the car overnight all frozen.

The first half of the drive was very windy road, as shown in this pic above.


The second half was mostly straight hwy (kinda boring) but going all the way up. One of the sign we saw in the scenic/view area.

As usual, we took a lot of pictures. The Grand Canyon is way bigger than Crater Lake. We just went to the South Rim since the North rim is closed during winter .

Along the way, the snow still everywhere. However, we couldn't see a single snow in the canyon. Here is one of the pic of Grand Canyon from the Dessert View area.


Below is another picture taken from Grandview area. The cloud was actually make the pic looks better.


And guess who park in front of us?

Arizona Day 2

On 2nd day, when the sun is up, it's really really bright. It looks like warm but actually it's not. It's a bit chilly. Now, we can see what we missed when we drove the night before in the dark. The place is beautiful.

Here is the picture of our cottage and of course the weird looking car.

There is a water fountain on the way in to the resort. It's still running, but some of the water is actually frozen and there are some ice on the fountain.

The second day, we plan to look around Sedona area since there are a lot of things we can see here. And since it's winter, the day is shorter. We also try to save our energy for long trip the next day to Grand Canyon.

The first trip is to go to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. The chapel is located in one of the top of the red rock mountain. As you can see in the picture.

There are a lot of interesting red rock formations but we can't put all the pictures here.

I also found out that the car is sucks :) The car is not comfortable when driving on the curly road. So, my suggestion, don't buy this car :)

Another picture of Novita with the plants that grows around the chapel area. We actually have to hike to go up since we can't find parking spot near the chapel area.

From there we went to the Bell Rock formation. We actually decided to go for lunch first before we hike this rock. It's quite a challenge for us who are not a hiker. This is actually under category Easy Hike. All this because we try to cut thru rather than going to the easy trail where the easy trail. We decided to take the easy trail after we can't hike too steep anymore.

This pic of us before the hike on Bell Rock formation in the background.




There is another picture when we 1/2 way. We decided to turn around since it's too steep and it took longer than we plan.

Then we went to another scenic place near the Sedona airport. We actually can see the Sedona town from there and also we can see the red rock formation surrounding Sedona. We decided that we're going back there to see the sunset. The whole area look like cowboy town like in the movie.

Then, we also go to art shops (or mall) called Tlaquepaque Arts & Craft Village. It's very unique. It's an open mall, with all art shops. There are some fine dining place as well. Mostly fine art or jewelries. Here is the website if you guys interested to see www.tlaq.com. It's very good for pre-wedding picture (Siska, next time you can ask your client to come here hehehe :).


Here is the picture of the scenic near the airport during the sunset. We got there a bit late since there is traffic. Apparently, a lot of people have the same idea like us.

The first one is during the day when we went there the first time.

The second pic is during sunset at approximately the same spot. That's the end of day 2.

Arizona Day 1

After 4 hrs of sleep the night before we left, finally we can catch up our sleeping in the plane. The flight from YVR to LA was arrived 30 mins early, however, the continuing flight from LA to Phoenix was delayed for 1.5 hrs. Yes.. 1.5 hrs we were inside the plane not moving. It's all because the stupid lavatory door was broken. Someone broke it. So, they have to fix it before they can fly according to stupid FAA rules. Then of course they don't have the spare part so they have to manually create the part to fix it. All those 1.5 hrs we spent with sleeping in the plane.

Anyway, Phoenix is 1 hr early than Pacific time. We arrived at the Phoenix airport almost 4;30pm local time. The wait continued while we had to wait for the luggage. Finally, we got our rental car out by almost 6pm. :)

So, we just drove all the way to Sedona about 2 hrs from phoenix. Since it is dessert, when driving in hwy it's really dark. The worst part, the place we're staying has no sign to guide us. Luckily, since it's a dessert, we could see a complex with a lot of lights so we decided to turn since the GPS navigation already said we passed it :) The complex indeed is the resort. The resort is kinda cute. Small cottages. It's kinda hard to see the whole area b/c (again) too dark hehehe :)

Overall, with all those issues, we're enjoying it.
BTW, we didn't get the Pontiac G6, they offer us Chevy HHR. http://www.chevrolet.com/hhr/?seo=goo_hhr

I thought why not.. give a try :) It's ok... I haven't taken the pic yet. Will do tmr.

At the meantime, I took some pics from the plane, the Hollywood from far far away :P

It's not a really good pic b/c I have to rush to get the camera ready, zoom it and take a quick pic while the plan moving away from it. I resize it to smaller size.


The temp at night drop to 3-5 Celcius at Sedona but I don't feel it as cold as in Vancouver, maybe because it's not humid as Vancouver. The temp in Phoenix is way higher abt 15 Celcius.