After being chased away by rain from the Flagstaff area we decide to explore Sedona in the afternoon. As we descend the rain stops which is great news for us. For parking we choose a parking lot we discovered last time, it is free but not on the highway. You actually have to use walkways and an elevator or stairs to get to the main tourist area, which is the reason why it is both empty and free.
We are quite hungry at this point so as we descend we start looking for an open restaurant. There aren’t really many of them so we explore both sides of the street and also enter a few stores that are open.
There are as usual quite a few great views of the surrounding red mountains that are the major attraction for many tourists to Sedona.
And then we finally find an open restaurant that we like. It is a new Mexican restaurant, at least as far as we can tell, and the food is quite varied and in our opinion good.
Full now it is time to do some light shopping as we move from store to store looking at the many interesting objects, many of them quite expensive.
And then it is time to return to Phoenix passing through the beautiful red hills as the sun slowly falls below the horizon and we reach the interstate just as darkness descends.
And then completely unexpected we notice something bright towards the west. At first we are not sure what it could be, UFO invasion, military training exercise or something else? But then we understand, it is a SpaceX rocket launch, something that we tried actively to see for months but were never able to. It is quite impressive and we really enjoy it even though it is happening while we are barreling at 75 mph down the interstate in one of the trickier sections. And then we are back in Phoenix after an eventful weekend in Flagstaff with most of our plans being disrupted by the rain.
