Pictures of the parts of Arizona that aren't in Hell!

This past Saturday Krys and I went north for a bit to get away from the children and to celebrate our anniversary. My parents were nice enough to babysit. We didn't stay away too long - we left about 10 in the morning on Saturday and got back about 5 on Sunday - but it was still good to be without little ones for a time. We drove north on I-17 to Camp Verde, where we checked into our bed & breakfast, the Hacienda de la Mariposa. Then we drove to Sedona and hung out there for a while. We have been to Sedona more than once, so we didn't stay too long. Plus the weather was threatening rain all weekend, so we didn't want to wander around and get caught in a downpour. That night we ate at the Indian casino in Camp Verde, and on Sunday we drove up through Jerome, into Prescott, and home. The only place that was disappointing was Prescott, where it rained very hard the entire time we were there. Prescott is a neat town, but we didn't get to walk around at all. Oh well - it's not that far away. We'll go back.

Here are some pictures of our journey.

These are all pictures of the bed & breakfast. It was a nice, quiet place.






















Here are some pictures of Sedona:








Here's my lovely wife looking for stones. She takes stones from every place we visit. Just before we left she found the stones she took from Karnak, which she thought she lost. So she was happy. What does she do with the stones? Only she knows for sure ...


This is, according to something I heard years ago, the only McDonald's in the world without yellow arches. It's in a shopping plaza in Sedona whose primary colors are turquoise and that deserty color, so that's why they're this color, but if that's true, I wonder why they were allowed to keep it?


This is Jerome, which is an old mining town that reinvented itself as an artists' colony in the 1960s. It's a very cool town. I'd love to live there, but I think it's probably expensive, and besides, what would we do professionally?








Finally, dramatic weather shots. Oh, the drama!




So that was our weekend. Not the most exciting time, but certainly relaxing. And no kids means Mommy and Daddy have less stress. Of course, we missed them the whole time we were gone, but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy ourselves!

It's true, though - there are many parts of Arizona that don't look like shit. It's a Festivus miracle!