Map of our travels on day six from Sedona, AZ to Tucson, AZ.
On Day 6, we left Sedona and headed to Tuscon, AZ. We drove south on highway 179. This is a very scenic drive and we got to see a lot of the red cliffs. Then we took interstate 17 south and finally interstate 10 south towards Tucson. We passed through Phoenix, and stopped for lunch there. We ate at Chick-fil-A. Though there wasn’t any snow, or anything else exciting on the way, we were pretty much ecstatic, because today, was Christmas Eve! Time passed quickly, and we reached Tuscon at about 2:00 p.m. Instead of heading for our hotel, we drove to the Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium on the campus of the University of Arizona. We arrived just in time for their “Holiday” show. The show explained why we celebrate Christmas. After the show, we ventured into the museum. We saw their math exhibit first. There were lots of brainteasers. One of our favorites were using seven different pieces to form a 3 by 3 cube!
Enjoying a math puzzle at the Flandrau Museum (Image by the Jayasinghe family).That’s a big crystal! at the mineral exhibit (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
Unfortunately, the museum was going to close in half an hour, so we looked at the exhibit that would take the least amount of time, which was the mineral exhibit. It was beautiful. We saw gold, silver, amethyst, sapphire, and even some petrified wood! We also got to see a fossil of a trilobite, which was a completely fantastic experience! Afterwards, we headed towards our hotel.
Our dad had reserved the Country Inn and Suites in Tucson for us. There were two of these hotels, and our dad had thought that we were staying in the one near the airport. When we got there he figured out that we were actually staying at the one closer to the city center! We finally found the hotel after taking a wrong turn twice. The hotel was decorated nicely, had an elegant look, and actually offered free fruit and cookies! They also offered free breakfast in the morning. The rooms were clean and smelled good. We rated it 4 out of five stars.
The red rock “snoopy” in Sedona (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
We woke up in rainy Sedona. It was really foggy, but you could still see the towering red rocks, or Moenkopi Sandstone, that Sedona is known for. Our mom had booked a Pink Jeep tour at 1 p.m. Since we had no plans we drove 5 minutes to uptown Sedona and walked around, for about two hours. Uptown Sedona has a lot of shops! We learned that Sedona was mostly a tourist city, and that was why there were so many shops! Most of the shops sold crystals and minerals, but we saw a Starbucks for the first time on our trip! I am sure there were many Starbucks cafes along the way, but this was the first one we had seen.
Pink jeep after driving on the dirt road (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
At 12:45 p.m., we headed toward the Pink Jeep store. At the store, a Pink Jeep Tour guide picked us up in a pink jeep and we headed toward the edge of the Colorado Plateau to visit the cliff dwellings of the Honanki people. The Pink Jeep was open on all sides. It was freezing cold, the temperature outside was about thirty five degrees, but with the jeep moving fast it was even colder, and it was raining! Soon we left the paved road and was driving on an unpaved, muddy, bumpy road. It was a pretty windy day as well. The jeep was pink when we started, but by the time we got to the Colorado Plateau it was completely brown with mud!
Entrance to Honanki Heritage Site (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
Our tour guide parked the Jeep, and we walked on a dirt trail ( or rather a trail that was a dirt trail and now was a mud trail ) to get to the cliff dwellings. We all got splattered with mud, but, being able to see the cliff dwelling of the Honanki people was well worth it! We all felt like tiny insects standing there next to the cliff!
Honanki Cliff Dwellings
Located near Sedona, the Honanki heritage site is open to the public seven days a week. Our guide said that the Pink Jeep Tours have teamed up with the park service to preserve the dwellings. The dwellings sit under a ledge of rock jutting out from the Colorado Plateau, keeping the area dry. This is probably why the Honanki people chose to build their houses there. Archeologists think that people lived here about 800 to 900 years ago. Today, only some of the brick and mud walls of the dwellings remain. Our guide said that some of the houses were two stories tall, but that early white settlers in the area had destroyed some of the houses for the lumber. We also saw some wall paintings, clan shields, and handprints, that are thought to have been made by the original people who lived at the site.
Handprints on the cliff thought to be made by the original people of the site (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
There were also some graffiti made by more modern people, and one of them made in 1926 even had a date! It would have been cool to touch some of the bricks they used for houses, but unfortunately there was a sign saying that if you touched anything that was used for the dwellings, you would be fined and have to spend 10 years in jail. Naturally, we didn’t touch anything. Besides, we didn’t want to damage the cliff dwellings!
After our fantastic pink jeep tour, we strolled through the shops in uptown Sedona again, and bought a few croissants and eclairs from the pink jeep cafe, since we hadn’t had any lunch. Our grandparent bought us beautiful bracelets and some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory chocolate, which was delicious! We used to think See’s Candy was expensive, until we got to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The chocolate was about two and a half times more than what we would have paid at See’s Candy for one truffle.
After a long, but exciting day in Sedona, we were glad to get back to our room to relax.
Map of our travels on day 4 from Flagstaff to Sedona, AZ, with a stop at the Meteor Crater.
We woke up at the Hilton Garden Inn, Flagstaff. And guess what? It was snowing! We were really excited about the snow because we haven’t seen snow falling before. We went outside and enjoyed the falling snow for a little before we had breakfast. Then, we packed our bags and got in the van to head to our next destination, Sedona AZ. On the way to Sedona, we decided to take a detour and go to the Meteor Crater. From flagstaff we took interstate 40 east towards Winslow and followed directions to the Meteor Crater.
The Meteor Crater
At the Meteor Crater near Winslow, AZ. (Image by the Jayasinghe family).
The Meteor Crater is the worlds best reserved meteor impact site in the world. The impact happened about 50,000 years ago. It is one mile wide, and more than 550 feet deep. In winter, it can get very windy, but even though on normal days it isn’t that windy, it’s good to be prepared.
We went on a Guided Rim Trail Tour. The guide was really knowledgable and gave us a lot of interesting facts about the crater and its discovery. You can see directly into the crater when you are in the rim trail and the hike was a lot of fun. On the hike we also got to see some cool rocks including the Pulverized Coconino Sandstone. The wind was quite strong. We were scared thinking that our little sister would be blown away. Later we heard that there were wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour! We had fun even though the wind was strong.
On our way back from the Meteor Crater to Sedona, we went on this wonderful drive from Flagstaff to Sedona, on the Oak Creek Canyon Road (highway 89A south). Highway 89A has several sharp turns, and at first, our mom wasn’t too excited about the road, because she doesn’t exactly like windy roads, but pretty soon, the surroundings made her forget about the winding road, and she was oohing and aahing all the way. Actually, most of us did too. On either side of the road there were towering mountains, the trees were covered in snow, and there was a creek running beside the road. The landscape just captures you and it is really majestic. It is just indescribable.
We checked in to the Days Inn in Sedona. It was raining and there was a lot of fog. The rooms at the Days Inn were big, but they needed some updating. The room looked old and the carpets looked like they needed some cleaning. One of the heaters in one of the rooms did not work, and we had to ask the front desk to come and replace a couple of light bulbs. We gave this Days Inn two stars.
