Snowmaggedon

I need to speed up. That’s what Lorraine is telling me. Although our month in Las Vegas was somewhat routine — more about that experience in later posts — we are doing much more outdoor activitity here in Sedona. And, apparently, I need to catch up with posting closer to real time.

My health really impacted our time in Las Vegas. I could handle a few hours of being outside but I could not handle some of the hikes we had planned to do there. Places like Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire and Death Valley.

Things seem to have improved and I have been able to enjoy longer hikes and I seem to be fine during most of the day. Evenings are still tough but perhaps things are finally getting better as I seem to be handling the increased physical activity without severe pain.

And Snowmaggedon proved it.

When we arrived into Sedona, we were hit by a significant snowfall. This was the view outside our front door on my birthday, March 2nd:

You can’t tell that we are surrounded by mountains in the above photo but on my birthday I had to spend a couple of hours digging out of the snow. No pain.

Overnight the snow began to disappear.

As the snow abated the following day, Friday, March 3rd, we were able to explore our surroundings. Although we have visited Sedona many times before, we had never really spent much time Uptown Sedona or West Sedona.

We decided to walk around Uptown Sedona to enjoy the shops and the scenery.

As you can tell in the photos the heavy snowfall did not last very long. After 24 hours, most of the snow had melted. The sun was out and, despite the temperatures being a bit lower than normal, it was a beautiful day to walk around the area. And, if you look carefully in the photo below, you will notice that one of the merchants welcomed us with a Canadian flag.

The mountains provide a dramatic backdrop to the shops although I would be mindful of the crowds. On the weekend this place is overwhelmed by visitors. Even on the Friday parking was unavailable in the shopping area. We had to park some distance away.

Many of the shops are on two levels and regardless of your viewpoint, there are mountains in the background.

This viewpoint is from a lookout on one of the second floor walkways.

Friday was basically a get re-acquainted with Sedona day and a supply run for groceries and some hiking gear. Lorraine needed hiking boots as we had left them behind in Canada. As it turned out, we would need more supplies for hiking in Sedona.