Sunday was our last full day in Sedona – so sad! However, we still did have a full day to enjoy. We decided to go on a short hike, because how can you go to Sedona and not hike on the red rocks? AND, the weather was still sunny and in the mid-70’s – so perfect (especially after having spent a few months in the cold, rainy, cloudy Pacific Northwest). We ended up near the Sedona Airport, in the Brewer Trail / Coconino and Yavapai Loop area. We hiked up to a couple of vista points and greatly enjoyed the scenery!
And…here we go. We rounded a curve in the trail and found a group of people meditating to the sounds of a Native American beating a drum. Rich white new-age people crack me up.
We had such a great little vacation. It was a fantastic way to celebrate my birthday, and Valentine’s Day, and beat the Seasonal Affective Disorder blues. We’re back in Vancouver now, but I’ll always have a bazillion pictures to look at (even if they all look mostly the same!). Cha cha cha!
Today’s post comes to you from The Daily Prompt, which asks: “Do you have a reputation? What is it, and where did it come from? Is it accurate? What do you think about it?” I have chosen to answer these questions in the form of haiku, accompanied by illustrative diagrams. Enjoy!
Since I have five cats
And you have only one, I
state proudly, “I WIN!”
Litter in my bed,
My derby name reflects this:
“Gritty Cat”, crunch crunch.
Two plus three is five
And I was the one with two.
Spouse: Crazy Cat Guy.
I love to snuzzle
and pet my fuzzy fur bombs
Crap, they make me sneeze.
Clothes covered with hair,
White on black, black on white. But
I still want these pants.
“Achooo! I love you!”
We don’t care, clean our poop box!
We command you, girl.
It’s 2 am; do
you really need food now? Yes,
we will starve to death.
Ahhhhh – now we’re really getting into vacation time. Thursday and Friday were awesome, but we had to get up pretty early in the morning so that we could put our vacation plans into action. But Saturday, my friends, was time for relaxation…AND MORE ADVENTURE!!!! Although, when we woke up, we didn’t know exactly where the day would take us.
The first stop for me was at the spa, where I got an amazing custom facial. And it wasn’t just a regular facial (ok, get your mind out of the gutter!), but it was like a facial with bonus massages. While various goops were moisturizing my skin, the therapist massaged my arms, hands, shoulders, and then gave me a scalp massage so relaxing that I was just on the verge of sleep. Then, I went to get a long pedicure that included a hot stone massage for my feet and legs. I was so relaxed from my facial treatment that I just wanted to go back to the room and take a nap. But I suffered through my pedicure to the very end (ok, I’ll admit it – I can be a touch spoiled!). Seriously though, it was all very relaxing and I felt very pampered.
So now on to the good stuff that might interest you! We wandered up to Main Street for some lunch (meh) and walked around a bit. On our meanderings, we stopped in at a little tourism outfit that was giving great rates on SEDONA HELICOPTER TOURS!!! YESSSS!!! All the helicopter tours!!! We opted for the “Hog Wild” tour, which basically combined their two shorter tours into an hour-long flight. They even picked us up at our hotel and drove us to the airport and back. I knew that I wanted to see all the red rocks surrounding Sedona, and this is one of the best ways to do it! Are you ready for some pictures and another video clip? Here you go:
(with bonus helicopter blade blur)
The pictures don’t really capture how amazing the valley is, in terms of its colors and vastness. I guess to really get a flavor for what the ride was like, you should probably watch this video clip. We were able to get really close to the rock formations and swoop through the canyons, which was a little different from the Grand Canyon tour because at the Grand Canyon we had to stay above a certain elevation. But in Sedona, there were no regulations like that – my favorite parts of the flight were Secret Canyon and Boynton Canyon – we even saw some cliff dwelling ruins. I highly recommend seeing Sedona by helicopter!
Just finished putting together my new blogroll for Fuzzy Undertones (i.e., links to blogs and webpages that I follow)! It’s pretty big, so I gave it its own page. If you’d like your blog to be listed, let me know and I’ll take a look! 🙂
I’m struggling with this post. Ironically enough, I’m trying to write a post on writer’s block. So, having writer’s block about writer’s block…kind of dumb, right? Since starting this Zero to Hero blogging process (and thinking about the upcoming A to Z Challenge in April), I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity and what it takes to keep pushing through blocks. It has been a long time since I’ve pushed myself creatively, and I’m afraid that it will wane at some point, as it always does. Yesterday I found a blog called Year of Creative Habits, by Crystal Moody. Every day, she posts pictures of drawings that she’s made in a small notebook while having breakfast. On day 17/365, she included this quote by Lynda Barry:
The two questions [i.e., Is this good? Does this suck?] came from trying to write something good and not getting very far because I had forgotten that trying to write something good before I write anything at all is like refusing to give birth unless you know for sure it is going to be a very good baby.
What struck me about this is that being either good or sucking is not really a part of the creative process. Yet somehow, we let these two questions drive our ability to create. We either create, or we don’t. We do, or we don’t. For some of us, creating is something we need to do. It’s the same as eating, sometimes even breathing. But we don’t say to ourselves, am I good at eating? What if I suck at eating? And we certainly don’t let the answers to those questions (should we even ask them) stop us from eating. We might not be hungry all the time, nor will we like everything we eat or like the way food makes us feel when we eat something naughty (oh, and I do love you, bacon egg and cheese McGriddle). But at some point, we have to eat.
If I accept the fact that I have to eat, I can come to the conclusion that just by eating, I am a good eater. And in the same way, just by creating something, I am a successful creator. Whether it sucks or not is irrelevant.
Generally, it’s not the lack of ideas that get it my way, it’s that nasty little voice in the back of my head telling me that the ideas that I have suck, so I should just not waste my time by writing them down. And in that respect, my ideas are dismissed, shot down, disregarded as soon as they come so that it feels like I don’t have any ideas, or at least no good ones. Please remind me to read this post next time I get writer’s block, m’kay? Or better yet, do YOU have a way to overcome writer’s block? Please share it with me in a comment!
I’ve never thrown my hat into the ring for anything in an election kind of way. I suspect this has to do with my insecurities around not being liked by others, or even people knowing who I am. But last night at our roller derby league meeting, I was voted in as a new member of the Bleeding Hearts, a 5-person group of skaters who are there to help other skaters out with issues or problems that they are facing within the league. These can be interpersonal conflicts, or issues that might be resolved before becoming official grievances. Anyway, it made me feel really good to know that my league sisters trust me in this position. Thank you so much!
Now, don’t get me wrong – I think the Grand Canyon is pretty friggin’ spectacular. And I also think it has definitely earned its place on the 7 Natural Wonders of the World list. I’m just saying, “grand” is kind of subjective, and it could be a perspective that some people might not necessarily agree with. I, however, am not one of those people.
Yay Grand Canyon!!! Bright and early, we headed northwest from Sedona up to the South Rim for our Valentine’s Day adventure. Chris had never seen the canyon before, but it was on his bucket list, so we wanted to do it right. And you know what that means…
HELICOPTER RIDE!!!
And neither of us had ever been on a helicopter, so that was a first for both of us. The most fantastic part of the ride was flying about 100′ over a flat expanse of Ponderosa pines, and then all of a sudden we were flying 100′ PLUS another few thousand feet above the ground! The helicopter stayed level, but of course, our stomachs dropped (along with our jaws). I managed to take some video of the flight, which also features me acting like a complete spaz (as per usual, so don’t be surprised):
(REALLY??? Out of all the screen shots that could’ve represented this clip, THIS picture was the one selected??? REALLY?????)
Me and Chris in the helicopter!
After the flight, we stopped off at some of the view points to take a look around from the ground (and to collect a few stamps for my National Parks passport, which I actually forgot at home – d’oh!). All of the views were spectacular, and they all looked something like this:
It is amazing how the brain can barely process the visual field of depth of the Grand Canyon – when you’re looking at that much space in front of you, it’s hard to believe that you’re not looking at a photograph or a painting. It hardly seems real! Of course, we had to take a gazillion pictures, even though they all kind of look the same, and a picture will rarely ever do the real thing any amount of justice. But I can show them all to you, just let me know if you want to see them (j/k!). I won’t torture you with all of them right now, but here are a couple of my favorites:
By the time we made it back to Sedona, the sun was on its way down and we were ready for our Valentine’s Day dinner (which was delicious – we both had the lobster). I hope that you had a pleasant VD experience, and are looking forward to hearing about the rest of our mini-vacation in Arizona! More to come soon…
Did you ever notice that just before your alarm goes off at 3:15 in the morning
your sleepy mind expects so much silence
that you’re afraid you’ll fall back to sleep?
Maybe you need to catch an early flight out or
maybe your dad was coming to get you out of bed and hit the road early for the trip
you were taking when you were so little.
But as you lay awake you think (or remember):
there are no birds chirping, there is no wind blowing, there is no coffee brewing.
When you should be alone in your wakefulness you are most certainly not,
because the traffic in the distance is accompanied
by the train you never hear, roaring.
Do the other people awake at 3:15 in the morning hear it too?
Who are they, the people driving trucks and trains in their own starlit silence?
But there is no silence, not really.
There are only sounds, invisible during the day, but solid enough to reflect moonlight
in the wee hours of the morning.
About this poem. I almost never write poetry. However, I wrote most of this poem in my head last Thursday when I was getting ready to pull myself out of bed at 3:30 am to catch a flight to Arizona. The sounds in the distance – freeway traffic and a distant train – brought me immediately back to car trips I took with my dad and family that almost always started early in the morning. He would come in and wake me up, and sometimes I would be allowed to stay in my PJs while he drove down the near-empty roads. The sounds were always the same – so quiet, but so constant. Thank you, Weekly Writing Challenge, for giving me the opportunity to solidify my groggy thoughts on the Sound of Silence.
Just finished putting together my new 
Just a 
Fuzzy Undertones 
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