Sunday, March 27
Happy
Easter!!
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Had a good night’s
sleep! Crows were being a bit rowdy
early this morning….6:11 a.m. is when they woke me up. I know because I had my phone by the bed this
morning and checked it. Snuggled back
down into the warm until 8 a.m. when the alarm went off. Then we got up to start our day; a shower
being first on the list for both of us.
It’s amazing how your daily habits can change when you’re riding and
camping. Matted down hair is a standard
look after a spin on the bike. Put a hat
on and I’m good to go. A shower, which
is part of my daily morning routine back home, usually happens at night on the
road. If we’re riding the next day,
having a case of bed head is a non-issue because of the helmet. No matter when I take a shower, though, I
appreciate every little drop of water!
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We had plans on
riding to an Easter service at a nearby church, then heading out to Sedona from
there. It was a chilly morning and the
heater was making the tent so toasty warm that we really didn’t want to wander
out into the chill just yet. As we were
sitting there, discussing our options, Kim suggested listening to a podcast
from the Lenten series which Chip has been focusing on. We could have a worship time right there in
the warm tent, while waiting for the day to warm up. We’d missed a couple of weeks, so it seemed a
good opportunity to catch up. And bonus!
We discovered that our good buddy Doug Nitchman had preached on a Sunday that
we missed. Listened to not one, but two
sermon podcasts…Doug’s and Chip’s from Palm Sunday. J I know there’s benefit to worshipping
together with a body of believers, but we discovered that once in a while a
simple time of worship in a tent can be just as meaningful. No singing in our
tent service, but that was okay. J
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We rode to
Sedona today…and so did a whole lot of other people! I’ve traveled Hwy 89A from Flagstaff to Sedona a few times and I’ve
never encountered the amount of traffic as we did today. It wasn’t bad until we reached the Oak Creek
Canyon area and then the busy-ness continued on into Sedona. At lunch, we asked what was going on that the
traffic was so incredible. The answer:
Spring break…beautiful day…Sunday…and Easter weekend. Perfect conditions for two miles of stop and
go traffic coming into Sedona. I wear
my camera on a harness around my neck when I ride; so the times we were stopped
I had the opportunity to take pictures I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. That’s the silver lining, I guess. And being from Charlevoix, we know how to
wait in traffic and just go with it. We
headed back to Flagstaff at about 4:30, hoping the bulk of the traffic was
done. At the city limits as we were
heading north on 89A, traffic heading into town was backed up farther than 3
hours earlier when we came in. But there
was very little traffic going our way, so we had an easy, mostly uninterrupted
ride back. However, I did pull over a couple of times to let some traffic pass
us. I hate being the reason traffic is
backing up.
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We’ve both visited
Sedona before (in our former lives) and know full well the beauty of the red
rocks, so there wasn’t that urgency to stop and take pictures of absolutely
everything because “OMGosh, we’ve never seen anything so beautiful and who
knows if we’ll ever see anything like this again”. I’ve been guilty of that mentality and it
usually means pulling off on the side of the road right then and there,
creating angst for the people coming along behind. Oh, to be sure, we took lots
of pictures, but we only stopped a couple of times and then it was in parking
lots. A person has to be choosy about where to pull off the road when on a
motorcycle. Because the sun
was shining, the red in the rocks really popped; the leaves were full out on
the trees; and the blue sky made an excellent backdrop. Yep, it was a right colorful day!!
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There is an
elevation change from Flagstaff to Sedona…from 7000 ft to 4300 ft. On Hwy 89A that change is accomplished by about
3 miles of curves and 15 mph switchbacks.
Twisties/switchbacks are not on my list of fun things to encounter when
on a motorcycle. (Not that fond of them in a car, either.) The Great Crash of 2010 happened on an
extreme right curve and while twisties don’t ‘own’ me anymore, I do tend to
ride them slower than maybe most riders.
But having been on that route before, I knew what I was getting into…and
coming up wasn’t any easier than going down.
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Visited the Chapel of the Holy
Cross today in Sedona. The way it was built to blend into its surroundings has always appealed to me. It's an iconic area landmark and can be seen sitting up on a hillside among the red rocks from a couple of miles
away. Several years ago, when I visited
it with friends, we had the place to ourselves.
Today it was a popular stop for camera toting people (us included). There are benches inside, there are candles
to light, and the view is spectacular…but I didn’t see a pulpit, which made me
wonder if there are services held there.
Gatewaytosedona.com gave me the
information I was seeking:
The Chapel
of the Holy Cross was a gift from Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a sculptress,
philanthropist, and devout Catholic, who believed the arts should be in service
of spirit and indeed, considered the Chapel of the Holy Cross to be her
greatest artistic achievement and the fulfillment of her life's mission.
In its
early years the Catholic Church, to whom Staude bequeathed the chapel,
sometimes held services on the site. But the small size of the space eventually
became inadequate to meet the needs of Sedona's Catholic community. So services
were held elsewhere, and the chapel remained a shrine for people of all faiths.
That site contains a lot more information
but I was mainly curious about whether it currently held services. Curiosity satisfied!
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Okay, so my
dilemma last night was whether or not to feed the squirrels today. I didn’t feed the squirrels. I wanted to…I wanted to watch them enjoy
those orange peels, but I didn’t want to be one of those people that frustrate
me by feeding the gulls back home. Put one in the win column for my conscience. J
HAPPY EASTER !!
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