The Spectacular Sunset

 

10-24 

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Well, it’s my last day here in Sedona – tomorrow, I’ll be hitting the road to head down to a friend’s house in Phoenix, beginning the long journey home.

The last time I'll wake up to this incredible view... alas

I decided that this would maybe be a good time to investigate the source of the mysterious ticking in Jane’s motor. Better the devil you know, and all that.

I called Charlie – my “hot rod dad” – to bounce some ideas off of him and work through the problem. Charlie knows just about all there is to know about classic cars – he’s taught me a ton over the years (including how to rebuild motors!) but he’s also the guy who brought Jane back from the dead and gave her a second lease on life after 2013’s wreck. In short, he’s Jane’s secondary mechanic, and the number one “phone a friend” choice for all things relating to Jane.

We went through a few scenarios and possibilities, and I eventually settled on starting with a basic lifter adjustment. The nuts on those studs, being 60 years old, occasionally do back off. And they’re easy enough to get to. I pulled the valve covers and turned the motor over a bit at a time, readjusting each rocker arm at a neutral position to ensure the lifters were being contacted but not too much. Too much, and valves hang open, severely reducing your engine power (and who wants that?!). Too little, and they tick. Well, after adjusting a few, I got to one that seemed… oddly wobbly. And it was off-center from its position, which I noticed also had the discomforting side effect of carving a little gouge out of the valve spring caps, as well as the valve stem tip itself. Yikes.

See how that one in the middle is kinda... wonky?

Upon closer inspection - note the chunk carved out of the valve spring cap to the left of the rocker tip. Yikes.

I pulled the arm and found that it was simply super worn – again, a side effect of being 60 years old with an untold number of miles. Okay, source of the tick found! But what to do about it? Well, there’s just about nothing in Sedona as far as auto parts goes. But Phoenix… well, that’s a major classic car city! I concluded that the boogered rocker would probably be fine for the trip down there – not like I could do anything more to fix it here anyways – so I went ahead and reassembled it. All told, this took me about an hour to accomplish. That’s 50 minutes dicking around thinking and planning, and 10 minutes of actually just doing it. That’s the way these things always go.

“The devil you know, the devil you know,” I repeated in my head. With Jane back in one piece – and the devil identified – I headed to O’Reillys for a can of Rislone lubricant to add to the oil as extra insurance, poured it in, and set off about the rest of my day. You’d think I’d be more worried about these kinds of things, but Jane and I have been doing these trips for a long time, and we know each other well. As long as I know and acknowledge the devil – and make some rudimentary attempt at fixing it if possible – she always gets me home.

I headed over to downtown Sedona, intending to wander around for a while before taking a sunset Jeep tour with the famous Pink Jeep Tour Co. I do say “intending”. I arrived downtown to find people milling around in disarray, with half of the shops on the main drag unusually dark and silent. The Pink Jeep Tours base of operations was, naturally, exactly in the middle of the chaos. I made my way over there to find that they were “most definitely closed for the rest of the day” due to a transformer which had exploded in their shop, knocking out most of the block and causing quite a bit of damage. Well, bummer, there goes my Jeep tour!

I hoofed it over to another Jeep operator nearby before anyone else had the foresight to do so, and was able to book a replacement sunset tour with them. Score! But, it was a much shorter tour, so I had some time to kill.

I decided to fill that time with a root beer float.

While sitting outside with it, I happened to get a quick burst of texts from my friends at work. They’re always very careful to not drag me into work stuff when I’m out on a trip, but, you know, sometimes the office drama just can’t wait. I got filled in, then in turn filled them in on how my trip was going (fantastically) and how much fun I was having (a ton), and for a brief time I was surrounded by the warmth of their friendship. Then they said their farewells with a few wistful comments about missing me, and vanished into the ether, as people far away do. And I was left there to my float. Alone.

You might be thinking, “Kelly, you’re always alone on these trips!” and you would be right, mostly. I’m the extroverted loner type, really, always happy to stop by and see friends when I can, but also quite happy to be on my own. But very rarely do I feel lonely. But in that moment, I did. I missed my friends and the little escapades we have together, even the mundane ones like going to lunch at work, or going to the wine and dessert bar for cake and gossip. Life is just more fun with them in it. How odd, to be missing the little things like that, while out on an adventure in one of the most beautiful towns in the American Southwest. I suppose, looking back, that maybe it had been a few too many days since I last talked to someone face-to-face.

I was shaken loose from my thoughts as my phone chimed with an alert to remind me to report over to the Jeep tour – I know myself well, and if I don’t set a reminder, I’ll definitely forget to go places on time! I finished up my float and headed over, where I joined a large crowd of people milling around waiting to load into their Jeeps. Apparently, this operator had called in all of their drivers to handle the sudden deluge of extra tourists for this one night.

I hopped in the back of this extra-long Jeep they had, and off we zoomed for a sunset tour in Sedona back country. Clouds had gathered all afternoon, promising a great sunset – the first here in Sedona, really, considering the previous few days have been pretty cloudless.

The tour had advertised a two-hour “mild off-road” adventure, so I was prepared for some bumpy rutted roads but not much else. Certainly not the true off-road adventure I had hoped for with Pink Jeep Tours. But hey, the closer it got towards nightfall, the gladder I was that I had chosen a sunset tour. The lighting was just spectacular.

Unfortunately, the tour ended up being pretty disappointing on the “off-road” front. In fact, we went down a completely normal dirt road, which turned out to be substantially better-graded than many roads that I have taken Jane down in the past ten years. As we drove along, I was kind of kicking myself – I could have brought my really awesome car out this way and enjoyed it much more, AND then I would have been able to stop for photos whenever I liked. As it was, I had to be content with vaguely blurry photos I snapped while jouncing around in the back of the Jeep as it blasted down the road.

I liked this lone tree at the top

Eventually, we stopped at a little pullout, and I thought we might do some hiking out to a cool overlook or something. But no, we just stood and yelled into a canyon (which did admittedly have great echo capacity) and posed for some photos with the red rocks. I made the best of it.

A silly pic with the guide

I was feeling pretty sour by this point. Not that the tour had been terrifically expensive, but I just would have enjoyed it more by myself, with my own car (yes, even though just a few minutes earlier I had been lamenting being by myself a bit). But as we headed back – apparently that one stop was all we had time for, somehow – I started to see the really awesome light filter in. Oh, yeah. It was going to be one of those showstopping sunsets.

The sun dropped lower and the cliffs lit up, glowing emberlike in a hue that was quite impossible for my camera to capture. I did try, but that was just one of those times when… well, you just have to be there.

Like I said... my camera really couldn't capture this color

Finally, the sun dropped beyond the horizon, and Sedona’s fabled red rocks descended into shadow, becoming nothing but dark silhouettes against an increasingly vibrant sky. Cotton candy clouds drifted into interesting soft patterns, then coalesced into streams of fire coursing through the firmament. And we roared along that road under that incredible vast atmospheric painting, the wind cooling but not yet cold, the radio belting out some classic rock song underscored by the low hum of conversation from the other occupants, the crisp-warm-sharp-dry woodsy scent of the desert wafting past on unseen air currents, and suddenly everything was right again. It was one of the best ways to be reminded of how glorious this planet we live on can really be.

Plants for extra pizzazz 

We arrived back in town just after dusk, and I headed back to the AirBnB for my last home-cooked (in a kitchen) meal for another week. I had a fantastic steak (although I did set off the smoke detectors a bit, and had to exile the steak pan out onto the deck while my host sent worried queries asking if I was okay). After my meal I sat outside, listening to someone in the neighborhood idly playing a guitar, their mood apparently matching my own. The notes rose over the pines and the junipers, picking their way through the crisp cold air, no doubt reaching the red rocks around us but not quite loud enough to bounce back.

It had been a good last day in Sedona. There’s still so much hiking I’d like to do and so many things I’d like to see in this area, but I can always come back. And I will.

Until then… Kelly signing out.

The Colorful Canyon

 10-23 

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 Jane is making a ticking noise. Not a bad, needs-to-go-to-a-shop-ASAP ticking noise, but more of a “something isn’t adjusted right all the sudden” ticking noise. It’s been getting louder all week, and is now annoying enough that I feel slightly motivated to do something about it.

I started by snugging up my exhaust header bolts, which were loose per usual. The things attempt to escape the vehicle very constantly, so it’s normal for me to have an exhaust leak most of the time. This time the tick sounded like an exhaust leak, but happened at different times while driving. Nonetheless, I was feeling hopeful so I just snugged those bolts up.

Unfortunately, no dice.

It was a beautiful day, so I opted to ignore the potential problem – figuring that my paltry attempt at a solution would appease Jane, at least for the day – and instead headed off north of Sedona towards Oak Creek Canyon. Jane puttered along, ticking all the way but sounding otherwise pretty healthy and happy. She’s always been especially agreeable on these smaller winding canyon roads.

I drove up to the West Fork trailhead, where I encountered a bunch of cones and signs saying that the parking lot was FULL and that I should not try to enter. Well, I tried to enter anyways, mostly to get turned around to head back down the canyon. But lo and behold, just as I was entering the parking lot, I saw another car leaving… and the guy manning the entry booth begrudgingly let me in. Pays to keep the karma good sometimes.

I packed up my gear and started down the trail, first stopping at the remnants of the old Mayhew Lodge. A place with humble beginnings – starting at a hunting cabin in the 1870’s – the site was turned into a successful bed and breakfast in the 1920’s. It was a well-known refuge for famous figures in its heyday, but it ultimately closed down in the 60’s and was incorporated into the Coconino National Forest. A wildfire destroyed most of the buildings, and these days only a few crumbling walls and a hearth remain.

This looks like a great place to cook now, really!

Looking through a round window

The West Fork trail is one of Sedona’s most famous, and is also very different from the rest. Rather than traversing big outcrops full of junipers and cacti and soaring vistas, the West Fork trail follows Oak Creek up a narrow canyon that’s about as far removed from the “usual” Sedona landscape as you can get. Although the large white cliffs of the Coconino Sandstone still loom close, they’re mostly obscured by the lush vegetation growing along the creek banks – thick grasses, delicate ferns, large bushes, and a towering assemblage of pines, oaks, cottonwoods, and maples. Oak Creek babbles along, just a tame little thing a few scant inches deep in most places, its clear waters broken by cobbles smoothed by time. Thick pads of leaf litter crumble to earthy humus underfoot, making for a soft trail that echoed with hollow muted thumps as I walked. The sun – so strong outside the canyon – here is restrained to peeking through the foliage, lancing down in thin beams to highlight a leaf here, a rock there, a trunk elsewhere. This is a soft place, so different from the harsh, bright, arid world outside.

I had arrived right at the start of the turning of the autumn leaves, and was fortunate to see a lot of maples in their prime. The sun seemed to almost seek those ones out for extra illumination, the leaves blazing with brilliant reds and oranges and yellows.

At some point I stopped at one of the creek crossings to make a little raft out of bark, with a maple leaf sail. You see, when I was a child we had taken a family trip to Sedona – and for some reason, one of the most vivid memories we all have is my sister and I making boats to race down Oak Creek. So, I made a boat for nostalgia’s sake, and sent it on its way down the creek (although I admit that it took me a couple of tries before I made one that didn’t immediately sink).

I kept on up the trail, enjoying the nice easy walk in the cool shade. Every once in a while the trees would part, revealing the rocky walls of the canyon; these were massive but weathered, almost forming hoodoos in some places.

Eventually, I reached an odd stand of knobby plants that looked like they belonged in a marsh; they were arrayed across the canyon floor almost like grass. By this point the canyon had narrowed substantially. Trees were looking scrawnier and underbrush was almost completely absent (except for these weird reeds), so I surmised that I had reached a section that is shadowed for most of the day, limiting what can grow there.

The more I thought about it, it seemed that I had accidentally stumbled upon the exact right time of day to hike the West Fork, as the overhead midday sun illuminated the canyon wonderfully. It began to dip lower in the sky as I hiked, and by the time I reached the end of the traverse, the canyon had been cast into dramatic shadows. This made for fantastic photos at the very end of the trail in particular, where a still pool of water reflected sandstone cliffs in a truly spectacular way.

The canyon fell almost completely into shadow by 2PM as I hiked back along the creek, so I hustled my way out of there – the temperatures were dropping rapidly, and I had chosen to wear shorts for the day! Brrr. Once again I was grateful for choosing not to camp up Oak Creek Canyon for the week.

I got back to the trailhead with plenty of time for another activity for the day, so I plopped into Jane and drove back – tick, tick, tick, ticking all the way – towards town. I decided that I would try to do one last famous Sedona stop: Red Rock Crossing.

Google showed me the way to the Crescent Ranch Picnic Area, which of course required an entry fee. This whole week I’ve been completely inundated with entry fees - even though I bought an all-access trail permit, there are a lot of places that are exempt from that pass (including West Fork, where I had just been). So the prospect of paying for ANOTHER parking lot didn’t appeal to me too much. I pulled up to the entry booth and proceeded to do my best to charm the lady working it into not charging me. Well, she did charge me, but she only charged me the cost of a biker, which was a few bucks, so I guess I consider that a win.

Jane is very instrumental in reducing entry fees, sometimes.

I parked at the picnic area and consulted Google for directions to the crossing itself, and found that… there was no trail? I milled around the picnic area for a bit with nearly no luck. I knew I was looking for a spot where Cathedral Rock would be visible over the creek, but I could not for the life of me find it! The best I could find was a “mostly-right” spot, but there were quite a few trees in the way.

I got a little grumpy, especially seeing that there was a trail right on the other side of the river but apparently no way to get to it (I later found out that there used to be a bridge here, but it’s gone now). So, I yanked off my boots and socks to wade through the river. It was a couple feet deep and moving quite quickly at the narrowest spot, and I almost ended up in the water, but I made it across the way. With the light fading fast, I marched my way up that trail in search of a better view of Cathedral Rock, and eventually did find it.

Six people galloped past on horseback at one point - I stood off to the side of the meadow and they all galloped up one by one, whooping and hollering. Looked like a ton of fun! Kind of jealous.

Well, it’s not quite the Red Rock Crossing image I wanted, but it certainly was an incredible view of Cathedral Rock at its finest. So now I know – the Baldwin Trail is the one to take for this view, and theoretically you don’t have to pay for it at all if you go park on the other side of the river (and that saves you from having to wade across!).

As the sun was finally setting for real – I felt like I had seen two sunsets today, considering how dark Oak Creek Canyon had gotten earlier in the day – I hoofed it back to the river and waded back across, once again managing to not lose my footing. I have to say that that river is quite invigorating in the fall! Felt kind of nice on my poor abused feet, but I may have frozen them a bit.

Back at the house, I made myself dinner (salmon again) and considered the day. I was really glad I had gotten to scratch that nostalgic itch for Oak Creek and Red Rock Crossing, and it was fun to get to see the “other side” of Sedona compared to the more exposed desert hike I had done yesterday. Tomorrow will be my last day in Sedona, so I’ve got to decide what to do – I’m thinking maybe just a little hike followed by a fun sunset Jeep tour, which is the other classic touristy thing to do here. Jane might be mighty, but she really can’t hold a candle to a Jeep when it comes to actual offroading and bouldering!

Speaking of Jane, that ticking is really bugging me. So I think tomorrow morning I’ll put some time into investigating that. Hopefully I won’t find anything too catastrophic – but I’ve got plans to go to a friend’s house in Phoenix after I leave Sedona, and he happens to own a lot of classic cars, so I’m not worried either way!

Until then… Kelly signing out.