They look like pigs, they smell like pigs, but they're not pigs... They're javelinas! And they're apparently the town mascot of Sedona - they're everywhere. We even ate dinner one night at the Javelina Cantina.
After posing with the javelinas, we headed out bright and early for a Pink Jeep Tour. This is a "don't miss" experience for any trip to Sedona. We had such a great time. It was just the four of us on the Scenic Rim tour - drove up 2,000 feet in less than 2 miles to the very top of Mogollon Rim. 
Along the way we discovered that in some parts of the country, people enjoy pointing out shapes in the clouds - "That looks like an elephant!" But in Sedona, all the cool shapes are in the rocks. On our tour, our knowledgable guide introduced us to numerous rock formations. It was great fun. Here's a view of Cow Pie Rock. 
Kissing Rock. 
People Waiting In A Line.
Snoopy Rock. This one is quite famous - Henry even got a t-shirt with Snoopy Rock on it. 
And Lucy. It's lousy lighting, but it's still Lucy!
Check out that pink jeep.
The higher we went in the jeep, the more the landscape changed from desert to high mountain forest (even though there are no true mountains in Sedona!). We got high enough to come upon a Ponderosa Pine forest which looked just like any forest in Montana or Wyoming. It was beautiful. Lots of green plants and lush vegetation. And breathtaking views. 
Lots of wildlife to be found in the area - elk, deer, black bear, javelina, rattlesnakes, and tarantula hawks. Tarantula hawks? Doesn't that sound lovely? They are actually huge, huge black wasps. They can sting you and the bite is similiar to what you would get from a rattlesnake. However, what they are hunting for is a tarantula. They sting and paralyze them, drag them back to their nest, lay eggs on the paralyzed tarantula and then when the larvae hatches, the babies get to feed on the live tarantula. I told you it was lovely. We don't have nasty bugs like that in Washington, thank goodness!
Our guide also gave us other interesting tidbits of information. He told us about the moon flower and how Indians have used it for years as a powerful hallucinogen, but that each year local teenagers use it incorrectly and end up getting their stomachs pumped at the hospital. We also learned about the local agave plants (yes, the ones used to make tequila) and that they live about 50 years. During the last year of their life, they shoot up a huge flower - growing up to 60 feet in 15 days. Once grown, the plant dies. It only produces the flower that last year.
We learned a bunch of other cool stuff too! We had a terrific guide.
People Waiting In A Line. Snoopy Rock. This one is quite famous - Henry even got a t-shirt with Snoopy Rock on it. And Lucy. It's lousy lighting, but it's still Lucy!
Check out that pink jeep. The higher we went in the jeep, the more the landscape changed from desert to high mountain forest (even though there are no true mountains in Sedona!). We got high enough to come upon a Ponderosa Pine forest which looked just like any forest in Montana or Wyoming. It was beautiful. Lots of green plants and lush vegetation. And breathtaking views. Lots of wildlife to be found in the area - elk, deer, black bear, javelina, rattlesnakes, and tarantula hawks. Tarantula hawks? Doesn't that sound lovely? They are actually huge, huge black wasps. They can sting you and the bite is similiar to what you would get from a rattlesnake. However, what they are hunting for is a tarantula. They sting and paralyze them, drag them back to their nest, lay eggs on the paralyzed tarantula and then when the larvae hatches, the babies get to feed on the live tarantula. I told you it was lovely. We don't have nasty bugs like that in Washington, thank goodness!Our guide also gave us other interesting tidbits of information. He told us about the moon flower and how Indians have used it for years as a powerful hallucinogen, but that each year local teenagers use it incorrectly and end up getting their stomachs pumped at the hospital. We also learned about the local agave plants (yes, the ones used to make tequila) and that they live about 50 years. During the last year of their life, they shoot up a huge flower - growing up to 60 feet in 15 days. Once grown, the plant dies. It only produces the flower that last year.
We learned a bunch of other cool stuff too! We had a terrific guide.
It was an incredibly bumpy ride at times, but Henry and Dan enjoyed the ride.
I thought it was fun too. Alice found the bumps to be a little too much at times, but she did pretty good.
Back from our Pink Jeep Tour, we did a little shopping, stopped in at the UFO store (Sedona has the highest number of UFO sightings in the nation and the people who work there are true believers!!), and back to the resort for pool time. And what did we see going over to the pool? A tarantula! Where was that tarantula hawk when we needed it? 
That evening we went out to the airport to see the sunset. It was beautiful. 
While there, we ran into a man who had set up several telescopes and wide angle binoculars. We were able to see the moon (which is so delightfully imperfect close-up), a star cluster about a million light years away, Jupiter, Venus, and the Hubble Space Telescope which came across the sky at exactly 8:30pm.
I thought it was fun too. Alice found the bumps to be a little too much at times, but she did pretty good.Back from our Pink Jeep Tour, we did a little shopping, stopped in at the UFO store (Sedona has the highest number of UFO sightings in the nation and the people who work there are true believers!!), and back to the resort for pool time. And what did we see going over to the pool? A tarantula! Where was that tarantula hawk when we needed it? That evening we went out to the airport to see the sunset. It was beautiful. While there, we ran into a man who had set up several telescopes and wide angle binoculars. We were able to see the moon (which is so delightfully imperfect close-up), a star cluster about a million light years away, Jupiter, Venus, and the Hubble Space Telescope which came across the sky at exactly 8:30pm. 
Another delightful day in Sedona.
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