Arizona driving tour, day one (part 3)

Well, I didn't quite get to blog about the trip each day as planned since I've been without internet access the last few days (I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Tucson at the moment). So believe it or not, I'm still on day one as far as posting goes (it was an action-packed day). The main stop was at Slide Rock State Park, just north of Sedona.

Here is one of several tourist cabins built in 1933 (no longer in use, of course).

But this is the more exciting part--a swimming hole that reminds me of some of my favorite spots in Austin that I used to frequent. The water was a bit frigid, which took some getting used to, but it was nice to cool off and get some exercise (the water was a lot deeper in some spots than this picture would suggest).


Boy are those rocks slippery. But that's not why it's called Slide Rock.


This is: the rocks form several natural water slides that are pretty fun, although I did manage to scrape my sides against the rocks in the process.

A shot of the park from far off, with the beautiful red rocks in the distance.

We found this sort of secret little area. The boys on the left side were fishing, but now they've stopped to watch what's going on with the group of kids on the right. I was pretty interested too.

That's because one of them looked like he was about to jump--which he did (it's a little hard to see, but he's mid-air in this shot). He did live, if you're wondering.


The next day we drove out to a lookout point to try to catch a glimpse of the famous cathedral rock, which is one of the most photographed areas of Sedona. We could have gotten closer but we would have had to pay a fee. I wouldn't have minded that if I were up to spending some time there, but we were wanting to get on the road pretty quickly. So, sadly, they're just a hazy formation in the distance.

I did see some pretty cool cacti though.

I love the crazy shadows this one cast.