Sedona Trip, Part 2: Sunday

 Sunday November 22

For breakfast we just munched in whatever was available in the kitchen. We got all of our stuff together because we were to check out by 10:00 am. Our first stop of the day after leaving the rental house was Red Rock State Park. Elisa wanted to wear her dirty wet shoes but dad said no (because they were still wet and disgusting) and she threw a mini-fit because she wanted to wear her old shoes and not Gabe’s old shoes. But Erik got her to wear Gabe’s old (yet clean and dry) shoes in the end. She got over wearing boy’s shoes (eventually) while we hiked up to the abandoned Apache Fire house and back.

She was so upset about wearing boy shoes.

The Fire House was built by some rich people in the 50s but never finished.

After we got back to the car, I took Gabe (Ian tagged along) and let him pick out something as a reward for being the first to get his stuff packed up. He picked out a mini-brick lizard, similar to Legos but smaller. I bought myself a beaded cactus keychain and some prickly pear cactus candy to share. Ian was upset that he didn’t get anything, so I handed him the candy but he didn’t want it.

As we drove to our new rental house in Cottonwood, we picked up some Panda Express for Gabe and Elisa, and a taco and cinnamon twists at Taco Bell for Ian. For the adults, we ordered carry out from Crema Craft kitchen. I ordered the chilaquiles (aka huevos rancheros with pork and tortilla chips), Erik and tootsie ordered the chicken monte cristo, and Mark got the breakfast club sandwich. It was pretty good. We took the food and ate it at a picnic area in Dead Horse Ranch state park. Ian was still hungry so I fed him the rest of Erik’s monte cristo. We had a good time at the park. There was a pair of bonded bald eagles that flew around and occasionally rested in the trees—that was a neat sight. The rest of the time at that park was spent walking around the path that looped around the man-made pond. The kids discovered cattails. They had a blast “exploding” them. Gabe missed out on a lot of the fun because he decided to hang out in the car instead, but we let him explode a cattail when he met up with us towards the end of the walk.

My chilaquiles. Yum!

It's hard to see, but in the tree just above where the kids were wrestling is a bald eagle that lives there with it's mate.

A rare photo of Cindy/Tootsie and I

Me with the lake behind me. The temperature seemed to fluctuate between too hot (in the sun) and too cold (in the shade) so a sweater with sleeves rolled up was just right.

Having fun on the little pier. There would be some nice pics here if the lighting wasn't so bad.

Walking around the lake, without Gabe.

We found a cute little waterfall!

A very cute girly.

Not sure what to say about this pic...me with the pretty lake and trees.

We were highly entertained by the "exploding" cattails. Except Erik, who thought they made too big of a mess and wanted to move along.  I thought I got a video of the exploding cattails, but I guess not. Like they say, the best things in life are free. 

After walking the complete circle around the lake, Gabe finally joined us and tried his hand in making a cattail explode.

Our last stop before crashing at our new VRBO house in Cottonwood was the Montezuma’s castle. Me, Erik, and Tootsie have all been there before but the rest haven’t, or were too little to remember. Since Elisa is a fourth grander, we all got in for free since Montezuma’s Castle is a National Monument and the government says families with fourth graders get into national monuments and parks. The “castle” is a large ancient Native American dwelling on a cliff side—a really neat sight to see. 

After the Indian ruins we headed to the rental VRBO house. The house was probably one of the most unique houses we’ve been in—though in this case, it wasn’t necessary a good thing. For starters, the decor was extremely odd. Pictures were hung at odd places and absolutely nothing coordinated in the least bit. Also they had personal family pictures up which I thought was strange. Really, the entire house was just awkward and I wasn’t a fan of the steep stairs. And I really wasn’t a fan of the master bedroom which was in the loft (i.e unenclosed), plus we all had to share the upstairs bathroom. What I did like about the house was the piano (though unfortunately out of tune and needed some work) and they provided games and puzzles, which we took advantage of. Anyway, that night we ordered from Verde Lea Deli for dinner. I shared a carne asada torta with Mark, but I also tried some of Tootsies sub sandwich, Erik’s chicken tacos, and Gabe’s hamburger. Ian ate half a ham sandwich and Elisa ate some nachos. We put the kids to bed and Erik and I worked on a 1,000 piece Disney puzzle. Despite having no door in our room, I slept ok that night. I guess my sister didn’t sleep well at all because the bed was old and uncomfortable.