Day #4

This AM we checked out and hubster is playing golf. He wanted to check out a course that was recommended to him - Seven Canyons - supposedly beautiful altho the whole community has undergone bankruptcy a couple of times. We checked it out yesterday - well, tried to. They wouldnt let us in the gate "This is a gated community" without having a tee time. Told us to call the golf course to get permission - but had no server out there. So he decided to go ahead and play at Oak Creek where he had a tee time already - he said it was a beautiful course and friendly people and was very glad he played there.

So I got to go shopping and playing. Got some souveniers; visited the yarn shop after all - lovely place with some beautiful local yarns. Back up plan was to visit the library but didnt really have time. Visited a thrift shop and was very very sad we did not have the truck! They had some great things there. Got a glass pitcher for daughter who collects pitchers - loved the shape of it - tempted to keep it myself! Also a new hankie for my collection - lady there was funny, said $2.50 was too much to charge for a hankie (she apparently hasnt seen them in antique stores lately!) so she only charged me $1!!!! also got a book and a plant stand - and yes I did get the grumbles from hubby that I expected when he saw the plant stand (it was small!)

 Altho there are apparently specially bred prickly pears that come in different colors - our guide yesterday told us that this beautiful color means it was frost bit!

 This is the highway in and out of Sedona (coming from the north). Beautiful - reminds me of Big Sur a bit (no ocean obviously!) as well as up in the foothills! Lots of parks that would have been interesting to visit - maybe another time???

And then we made it to Williams. We will be going into the Grand Canyon tomorrow via the train (hubby said he did not remember that I said there is no steam train right now). We tried to get reservations earlier this year, but the places we wanted to stay were all booked - one time at the Miswak Lodge was enough for us - little did we know that they were all booked because of the Solar eclipse!

Stayed at a place called Canyon Country Inn. I was worried about it - you know you never can trust websites! But it was nice. Close to downtown - well, almost everything is in Williams, and to the train - in fact I was a little worreid cause you could hear trains very well from the room, but none woke us up in the night. Very clean and bright and roomy (well, the bathroom was a little small). But the most disappointing thing??? The so-called continental breakfast. Bread to toast - Safeway muffins - fruit - yogurt, and that was it. And the place was full because of a French group doing a Harley tour of the Southwest....so of course, most was gone by the time we got there at 0715 (breakfast was 0700 - 0900)....and the only replenish on the hour! Needless to say, the next morning we found a restuarant to eat at!

 Never hiked to any of the vortexes while in Sedona - but while hubby was playing golf, I did some shopping - stopped at this very eclectic store - and finally got close to a vortex in Sedona!

Speaking of the restuarant - we ate at the same one for dinner tonight - Pine Country restaurant. Pretty good food.....but oh you should have seen the pies! According to the waiter the pecan pie was perfect - no chocolate and they do NOT heat it unless you ask for it to be heated - but he came back to tell me they were all out. Darn it! So I ordered lemon merangue - oh my gosh!!!!!!!!! I really wish I had taken a photo of it! I swear the merangue was at least 4" tall!!!!! and light as a feather! The lemon part was thin, solid, tartly sweet - just perfect!!!!!