Category: travel.

First up, congrats to Cyndi.  I drew her name to win the paint giveaway from my previous post about Charleston.  Today I’m sharing the last post from our trip.  Be sure to read all the way to the end for another paint giveaway!

While the first half of our trip to Charleston was spent exploring historical sites and admiring beautiful homes and gardens, the 2nd half was spent at the beach.  Folly Beach, to be specific.  We packed up all of our stuff, checked out of our first hotel and drove about 20 minutes to hotel #2 so that we could stay right on the beach.

Here is how visitfolly.com describes Folly Beach …

Folly Beach, South Carolina is one of America’s last true beach towns. Just minutes from historic downtown Charleston, Folly Beach is a 12 square mile barrier island that is packed with things to do, see and eat. This is a funky, laid-back, come-as-you-are kind of beach. The pace is invitingly slow, the people are captivatingly unique and the shops and restaurants will receive you with good old fashioned Southern charm and hospitality. It won’t take long for you to feel right at home.

Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Folly River, visitors enjoy six miles of wide beaches, surfing, fishing, biking, kayaking, boating, eco-tours, and sea wildlife including several endangered species. The sunsets on Folly are legendary, so make sure you have plenty of space on your camera or smart phone … seriously, free up lots of space!

A few steps from the beach, downtown Folly features an eclectic array of locally owned stores and restaurants. Fun bohemian clothing, beach knick-knacks and surf shops are mixed with fantastic seafood restaurants, casual cafes and one-of-a-kind bars. With live music coming from all directions and fruity cocktails calling your name, your cares will melt away as you become lost in the Folly lifestyle. And when the sun goes down, Center Street becomes a lively mix of beach-casual nightlife and rooftop dance clubs.

Whether you need a beach front home for 20 or a romantic room for the two of you, Folly Beach is the perfect spot for vacations, reunions, beach weddings, or just a quick weekend getaway. Come visit us at ‘The Edge of America’ … you’ll love life on the edge.

I have to say, for a marketing blurb, it’s fairly accurate.  Folly absolutely felt like a funky, laid-back beach town.  We had some great seafood, some delicious cocktails and listened to some live music.  Everyone we met there was friendly and welcoming.  The staff at our hotel were exceptionally good (and after the really awful staff at our first hotel, this was a welcome change).

Speaking of our hotel, we stayed at Tides Folly Beach.

What I thought was really unique about this hotel was that every room was truly ocean-front.  In the photo above you’re looking at the street facing side of the building.  This is where the open air hallways and doors to the rooms are.  I’ve put a little arrow on the photo to show the location of our room, we were on the 7th floor.

Once you step into the room, all you’ll notice is the wall of glass looking out the opposite side onto the Atlantic Ocean.

Full disclosure, I did not take that photo.  I borrowed it from the web.  However, that is basically what our room looked like with the exception of the pretty aqua colored bed spreads.  We had some really drab beige colored spreads that were itchy and kind of gross.  Also, our room never looked that tidy.  One of the outcomes of COVID is that most hotels no longer clean your room during your stay.  I’ve stayed in … let’s see … five hotel rooms over the last year and none of them offered maid service every day.  The Disney hotels cleaned your room every 3rd day, but the rest did not clean the room at all regardless of duration of stay.  The Tides staff did say that you can request maid service, but you have to do so 24 hours in advance.  We probably should have done that because by day 3 there was so much sand on our floor that we may as well have been sleeping on the beach.

But … that view!

That view was worth having a little sand on the floor.

While lying in bed you couldn’t even see the beach, just the water, so it felt a lot like being on a cruise ship with the vast ocean outside your window (minus the motion of the ship).

I was fascinated by the pelicans that would glide silently past our balcony.  Since we were on the 7th floor, they were right at eye level.  I was never quick enough with my camera to get a photo of them from the room, but I did snap this one from the beach.

Looking down from our juliette balcony (if you aren’t familiar, this is a balcony that is only about 2′ wide, no space for chairs) you’ll see the pool.

I took that photo in the early morning before it was full of screaming children playing.  For the remainder of the daylight hours the pool was packed full.  As a result, we never went there, choosing instead to spend our time on the beach.

If you step out the door from your room into the open air hallway, you’ll see Center Street which basically ends at the hotel.

This street is lined with restaurants, bars and souvenir shops.  I’ve put an arrow on the photo showing our favorite place to eat, Rita’s Seaside Grille.

We ate there three times … no wait … four times.  Three of which were breakfast.  They had the most amazing Belgian waffles and a delicious peach bellini mimosa.

In the end, our favorite thing to do at the beach is to get up early and walk along the shore.

In my experience not all beach locales are conducive to this activity.  For example, we once stayed at La Jolla de Mismaloya in Puerto Vallarta which is situated in a cove that didn’t allow you to walk much in either direction.

But you can walk quite far on Folly Beach (the beach is six miles long).  We walked to the southern-most tip of the island where the Folly River meets the Atlantic one morning, and as you can see we pretty much had it entirely to ourselves.

We debated walking up the other direction to see the Morris Island lighthouse, but in the end we decided we weren’t up for the 8 miles round trip.

We enjoyed checking out some of the beachfront homes while we were out walking.

Mr. Q and I dreamed about how amazing it would be to live right on the beach.  We don’t even need a big ol’ fancy house like that one.  We’d be happy in a little cottage by the sea.  But as seems to be the trend in most waterfront locations, there are only a handful of small vintage cottages remaining.  I suspect that they get torn down to make way for the huge, expensive homes.  Although, to be fair, Hurricane Hugo did blast through Folly Beach in 1989 damaging many of the homes.  That may also explain why there are so few small, older beach cottages left.

One last thing.  Before you get the impression that the beach always looked like this …

Let me clarify.

That’s how it looked at 7 a.m. before anyone showed up.  Later in the day this beach was positively packed with people.

If you’re looking for a quiet, peaceful beach vacation, this may not be the spot for you.  However, it’s a great spot for families, and for those looking for more of a party atmosphere.

As we realized at the end of our beach stay, Mr. Q and I are really rather lame.  We could have done so much more in Folly Beach, rented bikes, taken surfing lessons, played volleyball, danced all night at the rooftop bars, but instead we mostly just relaxed on the beach, ate delicious seafood, and enjoyed a few cocktails.

FYI, that shrimp was delicious, and the cocktail was called ‘And Just Like That’, so clearly I had to have one (it was your basic Cosmopolitan with the addition of POM juice).

As you can probably tell from my photos, we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather the entire time we were in Folly.  This was a great way to end our Charleston vacation.  Although we stayed right there on the beach, you could also easily plan a day at Folly Beach while staying in Charleston as well.

Before I totally wrap up my Charleston blog posts, I have another paint giveaway for you guys.  Obviously, this one is inspired by the colors of Folly Beach; Stormy Seas, Endless Shore and Wharf.

The rules:  To be eligible to win, simply leave a comment on this blog post (you could tell me about your favorite beach.  Folly Beach was fabulous, but my all-time favorite beach is definitely White Bay on Jost van Dyke.)

Your comment must be left on this blog post, not on Facebook or Instagram.  You are not required to follow my blog, although it would be awesome if you did!

I will randomly draw the name of a winner for today’s prize from all of the comments left on this post by Sunday, May 22, 2022 at the stroke of midnight (U.S. Central time).

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $95, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, May 27, 2022 another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint I’m giving away today.

On our recent Charleston vacation, we stayed at the La Quinta Charleston Riverview, which is just across the Ashley River from the historic part of town.  Let me just say, this hotel was not great.  The traffic noise in our room was deafening, the hotel staff were awful (we had two hangers in our room and when we stopped at the front desk to ask for more we got a shrug and ‘I don’t know if we have any extra hangers’).  The included breakfast was so bad we only ate it once (and that was with a spoon because when we asked for forks we got another shrug and ‘we don’t have any forks’, apparently there is a hanger and fork shortage in the south).  I could go on, but suffice to say, I do not recommend staying at this hotel.  There must be better options out there.

That being said, we chose it because it was on the cheaper end … so I have to remind myself that you get what you pay for.  Lesson learned, it might be wise to pay a little more for your hotel.  I will say that it was in a pretty convenient location though if you have a car.  It was less than a 10 minute drive into the heart of historic downtown, and there was plenty of free parking at the hotel.  Although their website says that they have a free shuttle to downtown, when we arrived we were told that they no longer provide a shuttle.  Fortunately, we had rented a car and weren’t counting on their shuttle.

After our formal guided walking tour the previous day, on day two in Charleston we decided to just wander the historic district on our own.  We drove to an area called the Battery because my research told me that there was free parking to be had if you got there early.

  Since we’re early risers, and we were skipping that bad hotel breakfast, it was no problem to be parking the car in one of those free spots by 8 a.m.  Although it was overcast and the forecast called for rain, we never did get wet.

We walked along the battery towards Bakehouse Charleston where we knew we could get good coffee and some pastries (and FYI, their frozen mint lemonade is totally delicious too).

It’s a lovely walk where you can admire beautiful old antebellum houses along one side, and pretty water views along the other (and there are those free parking spaces in the foreground, as you can see they were filling up already).

This house along the Battery caught my eye.  It stood out because it was looking a little worse for the wear (this would have been a good one for your dad to fix up Connie), I wonder if it’s a popular stop on the many ghost tours that are offered in Charleston.

Check out that big ol’ crack in the foundation.  Yikes!  I can just imagine how expensive it is to maintain these old homes.  I’m so glad there are people out there willing to do it.  And FYI, this was the exception, not the rule.  For the most part the homes along here were in immaculate condition.

Once we were fortified with coffee and pastries, we headed out towards Waterfront Park.

This is where I found some of the only azaleas blooming for the entire trip (more on that in a future post).

This is also where you’ll find the Pineapple Fountain.

It’s a lovely place to just stroll around.

Just a sidebar note for any of my fellow cruisers out there, there was a Carnival ship docked right there at the pier.

So if you ever end up on a cruise that stops in Charleston, I can tell you that you are going to be docked right in the heart of the historic district and everything I’m sharing with you in this post is within easy walking distance of the ship.

And this brings me to one of the absolute highlights of our trip, for me at least.  Wandering through the neighborhood called South of Broad.

First off, if you want to avoid the crowds, this is one way to do it.  We did see the occasional horse drawn carriage full of tourists,

but for the most part Mr. Q and I had these streets all to ourselves except for the locals out walking their dogs, and the gardeners who were out cleaning up after the previous night’s storms.

My goal was simply to admire the houses …

and the gardens …

up close and personal-like (gosh I envy their boxwood!).  And there’s no better way to do that than on foot.

I’m fairly sure that Mr. Q deserves a medal of some kind for being OK with just wandering around this neighborhood for a couple of hours, stopping every 30 seconds so I could take another picture.

And even being willing to pose next to a giant planter to show the scale.  Seriously, that thing was huge.

Speaking of huge planters, check these out.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

Charleston is known for something called a single house, and there were quite a few examples in this neighborhood.

A single house is one room wide, with a porch running the length of the house down the side.  That door you see in the photo above leads to stairs up to the porch.  The actual front door to the house is in the middle of the porch.  If you want to learn more about single houses, check out this informative article from charlestonlivability.com.

Another really cool detail on the houses in Charleston were the gas lanterns.  I initially thought the flickering flames they gave off were some kind of fancy light bulb, but I asked our guide on the Alley tour and he said they were genuinely gas fueled flames.  Since it was a rather dreary overcast day, those lanterns added a warm, cozy feel.  They also go a long way towards convincing you that you are visiting a bygone era somehow.

Now, get ready for some serious eye candy … well, at least for my fellow gardeners out there.  I totally stopped and drooled over every garden we passed by.  Some of them were front and center for everyone to see.

While others were tucked away behind wrought iron.

Wrought iron being another thing that Charleston is known for.

Is there any better combination than wrought iron and wisteria?

This planted staircase also caught my eye.

Isn’t that unique?  I don’t know that I could do anything like that here in Minnesota.  What plant would survive our winters in that little amount of soil?  And how would you clear a foot of snow off those steps without disturbing the plants?  Hmmmm.

I’m afraid I might be coming off as some kind of snoop here, peering through gates and over hedges (and just to be clear, I did not trespass.  I stayed on the public sidewalk or street the entire time).  But my philosophy on gardening is this; if you go to this much trouble to have a beautiful garden, you probably want other people to see and admire it too.

Tell me fellow gardeners, am I wrong?  Does anyone garden simply for their own enjoyment, unwilling to share the beauty with others?

I didn’t just admire the gardens, I drooled over the houses too.

Our self-guided tour was made even easier by the frequent presence of plaques giving the history of notable houses.

We saw quite a few of these, and they gave lots of interesting information.

So if those aren’t an invitation to snoop around, I don’t know what is.

If you ever get to Charleston, I absolutely recommend taking some time to just walk around this beautiful neighborhood.  Get some coffee to go at Bakehouse Charleston and then just stroll around.  While it’s easy to get turned around, the area is small enough that you never can actually get lost (kind of like Venice, right bff?!).  There always seems to be a glimpse of the water around the next corner to re-orient you.

Although I have some more posts coming up about some day trips we took from Charleston, this is the last one about Charleston proper.  Just in case any of you are planning a trip there, I can also recommend the following things we did:

Touring the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon.

This is a great way to learn about the history of Charleston.

Visiting the Gibbes museum of art.

The Gibbes is small (at least compared to our MIA here in Minneapolis), but really well done.  If you’re interested in furniture (um, you are, right?), it’s worth a quick visit.  My favorite exhibit was the miniature portraits though.  Definitely go see those.

Taking a food tour with Bulldog Tours.

This is a great way to learn a little bit about the cuisine in Charleston and how it was formed by the varied cultural influences of French Huguenot and English settlers, and of course the African slaves, combined with the local food sources available.  I admit, I never did quite understand where the banana pudding came into play, but it was delicious.

Eating amazing BBQ at Home Team BBQ.

They have a few different locations, we ate at the one on the Ashley River Road.  It’s fairly unassuming looking from the outside.  We just stumbled upon it when driving back to our hotel one afternoon.  Mr. Q had the BBQ nachos with pulled pork, and yes, he ate all of it!  I discovered my love of Carolina mustard based bbq sauce there.  Yum!

So, I’m curious.  What’s your favorite thing to do on vacation.  Would you also be content to walk around and admire beautiful houses and gardens?  Do you enjoy museums?  Are you interested in the local cuisine?  Or do you prefer more adventurous activities like rock climbing or skiing?  Or maybe you’d rather just a sit on a beach with a cocktail (don’t worry, that activity is coming up later too).  Leave a comment and let me know!

As I mentioned recently, I have a thing for alleys with the exception of Minneapolis alleys that have a 6″ thick crust of ice in the winter and you’re trying to load a dresser into your van.  But otherwise, alleys always have a mysterious allure that draws me in and makes me want to see where they lead.

And the narrower, the better, right?  Well, as long as you’re on foot.

I think part of the appeal of the alley is that you can get a sneak peek into areas that aren’t necessarily seen from the regular street, without getting arrested for trespassing.

So when I saw that there was a walking tour in Charleston called Charleston’s Hidden Alleys & Passages, naturally I had to book it.

We booked the tour for our first morning in Charleston so we could get the lay of the land and have an idea which areas we wanted to go back and explore further later in our stay.

We were a little worried about the weather forecast.  We had flown in the night before during severe thunderstorms and a tornado watch (something I absolutely do not recommend).  And there was the potential for more severe thunderstorms the day of our tour.  As you can see in my photos, things were definitely wet.

But miraculously, aside from a brief light drizzle, we stayed pretty dry.  We never even pulled out the umbrellas we’d brought along.

And really, I think the overcast skies just added a misty romantic ambiance to the experience.

From a photography point of view, the gray skies made it much easier for me to get great photos in these alleys where the shadows would have been very deep and dark on a bright, sunny day.

One of the alleys we visited was the Philadelphia Alley.

How amazing is it that this alley was created in 1766 and we are still walking on it today.

According to our guide the bricks making up this alley were made by slaves, and the slave children had the job of turning the bricks as they dried in the sun.  As a result, their small handprints can be seen in many of the bricks.

Legend has it that this alley was also a popular spot for duels and that it’s haunted to this day by a man who lost his life there.  I didn’t run into him, but hey, you never know.  I will admit that between the ghostly handprints and the story of duels being fought, it was a little spooky.

One of the last stops on our tour was the Gateway Walk.

The Gateway Walk is an informal trail through gardens and graveyards.  It’s named for the many wrought iron gates that you pass through along the way.

Part of this walkway leads you through the Unitarian churchyard.

Oh my gosh you guys, is this not what you picture every southern cemetery must look like?

Filled with ancient tombstones and trees draped with spanish moss?

And camellias?  It definitely should have camellias.

Is that the most perfect shade of pink?

I really couldn’t stop taking photos of this place.

You might be wondering to yourself why the Unitarians don’t take better care of their graveyard, keeping it mowed, weed-free and tidy.

Instead it looks overgrown and unkempt.

But apparently this churchyard “is a garden that is allowed to flow and blossom and bloom right over and around the many old gravestones. This natural state is in keeping with Unitarian beliefs about the web of creation.”

I kind of love that concept, how about you?

Although this tour was very well done, I have to say that I wish our guide had focused more on the alleys themselves.

He led us through the alleys while talking about the history of Charleston in general.  So, while it was lovely to be walking through all of these amazing spots, in many cases he never even mentioned the name of the alley or any history associated with it.  I found a lot more information online while writing this post and I wish he had shared more of that with us.  This is not to say that he wasn’t incredibly knowledgeable about the history of Charleston, super charming, and quite entertaining.

Would I take this tour again?  Absolutely.  In a heartbeat.  It was a great way to get some background history on Charleston, and to get your bearings.  It also was definitely off the beaten path.  And trust me, that beaten path in Charleston is pretty well beaten.  But if you want to save yourself the $30/person we paid for it, with a little research and planning you could also easily wander these alleys on your own using info available online here and here.  My next post will explain how we did exactly that the following day, so be sure to stay tuned.

My sister and I often drive out to Boulder City, Nevada while visiting my mom.  Mom lives in Henderson, Nevada.  If you aren’t familiar, Henderson is a huge suburb of Las Vegas that has grown tremendously over the last 30 years.  It’s southeast of Vegas, and if you’ve ever gone to Hoover Dam from Vegas you’ve gone right through Henderson.  All of that to say that it’s only about 20 minutes from my mom’s place to Boulder City, Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam.

Despite being so close, we’d never hiked on the Historic Railroad Hiking Trail in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area during our previous visits.  So this time around we thought we’d give it a go.

The parking area for the hiking trail is located just past the Lake Mead Visitor Center.  I took the photo above from the Visitor Center, and the parking area you see off in the distance on the right side of the photo is for the hiking trails.

The trail is an out and back trail (not a loop) and is around 7 miles round trip if you do the whole thing.  We only did the part of the trail that goes through all five tunnels, so about 5 miles total.

While the scenery on this hike wasn’t quite as spectacular as the scenery in Sedona, it was pretty interesting to go through the tunnels and to read some of the history of the area on the trailside signs.  This trail is built on the old Hoover Dam railroad bed that was constructed for the purpose of moving supplies and machinery by steam or gas locomotives to the dam construction site.

I was especially fascinated by the explanation of Ragtown, the area where workers from the dam and their families lived in wooden cabins, tents or even cardboard shacks during construction of the dam.  They had no running water and no electricity (in other words, no air conditioning and not even a fan).  With daytime high temps reaching close to 120 degrees, and not a lick of shade in sight, I can’t even imagine how miserable the conditions were.  And keep in mind, the dam wasn’t finished yet so the lake wasn’t there and you couldn’t just jump in to cool off.

Alongside the trail are sweeping views of Lake Mead.  Below is a view of the marina.

I’ve always thought it must be fabulous to have a boat on Lake Mead.  It’s so huge and there never seems to be a lot of boat traffic (ironically, I just watched Pam & Tommy on Hulu and discovered that their infamous sex tape was filmed on a boat on Lake Mead, so proof positive that you can find some fairly secluded spots I think).

We had a picnic lunch after our hike and then headed in to Boulder City.  I’ve written about Boulder City here on the blog before.  I think of it as the southwestern version of Stillwater, MN.  It’s a cute little historic town with restaurants and quite a few antique shops.  There’s also a section of town with the most adorable 1930’s bungalows.    I guess if you were higher up on the food chain of those who worked on the dam, you got to live in a pretty bungalow in town rather than in a cardboard shack in Ragtown.

I never manage to get any photos when passing by the historic neighborhood, but I grabbed one off the internet for you.

The next time I’m in Boulder City I really want to just walk through this neighborhood and take a few photos.

My sister and I did head into a few shops while we were in town including the Boulder City location of Bloom.

Full disclosure, I took that photo last year.  I neglected to get a storefront photo this time around.  I mentioned the location of Bloom that is in The District in Henderson the last time I visited my mom.  They are IOD retailers, so I always try to stop in to see what they have.  I purchased the Rose Chintz paint inlay there.  This time around I was hoping they had the brand new Cheers transfer, but they did not have it at either the Boulder City location or The District location.

However, I did manage to find several other things to buy this time …

I don’t know what possessed me with that giant rubber stamp.  I’m always drawn to the stamps, but to be honest I typically don’t like the way stamps look on anything other than paper.  But I’m going to do some experimenting with the IOD ink and see if I can do anything fun with this one.

We also stopped in to Goatfeathers Emporium in Boulder City where we found the usual suspects like jadeite …

and copper …

I had to snap a quick shot of this Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne stoneware and text it to my friend Sue.

I recently pointed out to her that pretty much every thrift store we’ve been in has at least one piece of this stuff if not more.  It’s kind of a joke between us now to find it and point it out each time.  Are any of you fans of this stoneware?  If so, you should be thrifting it and not buying it in an antique mall, FYI!

Before heading back to my mom’s house, we also stopped in at Bella Marketplace.  This place was definitely more my style than Goatfeathers was.

Just check out this adorable kid sized hutch …

The display of vintage linens on an old wooden ironing board was fun.

And you know I love old cupboard doors turned into signs or peg boards.

This shop also had a vendor selling re.design with prima transfers and DIY paint.  They didn’t have any of the newer prima transfers that I’ve had my eye on (such as the blue toile, or the London Love), but I did pick up some of DIY’s Liquid Patina in Dark & Decrepit.  I’ve wanted to try this product for a while now.  I’ll be sure to let you all know how I like it.

As I was studying all of the furniture painting supplies that were available I caught something out of the corner of my eye.

You know how it is when something is totally out of context and your brain takes a minute to register what you’re seeing?  Yeah, it was like that.

I thought, ‘hey, that looks just like my guest room bed’ …

It took me a second to realize … hey … wait a minute … that is my guest room bed!

How cool is that?  I’m practically famous!

That project goes back to when I was a content creator for re.design with prima, so it makes sense that one of their retailers would be using it for marketing.  It was really fun to see it being used in this way.  I don’t know whether or not the owner of this booth follows me here, but if you do, then thank you!  I enjoyed my visit to your shop.

I like to search for brick and mortar retailers of products I use when I travel, it’s a fun way to find shops that I think will appeal to my aesthetic.  And speaking of which, Mr. Q and I are going to Charleston in April!  I’ve done a little searching and see a couple of shops in Summerville that sell IOD or Dixie Belle products.  If any of you can recommend fun shops to visit, or other awesome things to do in Charleston, be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

And if you don’t have recommendations for Charleston, leave me a comment and let me know if you’ve ever been to Boulder City.  If you’re a regular visitor to Las Vegas, and have never made the trip out to Boulder City, I highly recommend it.  Assuming that, like me, you enjoy seeing some historic homes and visiting antique shops.

 I have one more blog post to share from my trip to Mom’s, and it’s going to include a fabulous desert themed giveaway, so be sure to check back for that later in the week!

Those of you who visit Disney parks will know exactly what I mean when I say ‘rope dropping’, but for the uninitiated, rope dropping is when you get to a park before it opens to try and beat the crowds.  Back in the day they literally had a rope across the entrance that they dropped at opening time, hence the name.

My sister and I are expert rope droppers, we wouldn’t do Disney parks any other way.  They get so crazy crowded later at mid-day.  These days I find that the only enjoyable time to be in the parks is early morning, or late evening.

Well, as we discovered on our trip out there last week, Sedona, Arizona is a bit of the same.  Debbie and I put our expert rope dropping skills to work in Sedona!

But let me start at the beginning.  After flying out to our mom’s house, we got up early the next morning, packed up the car and headed for Arizona.  It takes just over 4 hours to drive from Henderson, Nevada to Sedona, Arizona.

We drove to Flagstaff, and then took 89A, a.k.a. the Oak Creek Canyon Scenic Drive, south from there into Sedona.  I took this photo from the Oak Creek Vista just so I could show you guys what that road looked like.

Uh, yeah, it was kind of scary.

Rock wall on one side, massive drop off on the other.  My mom was cool as a cucumber in the back seat, but Debbie and I white knuckled it the whole way down.  The scenery was absolutely spectacular though.

If you head into Sedona from Phoenix or Tucson you won’t be coming this way, but it’s worth taking the drive up and back just for the scenery.  Just take 89A north out of Sedona.

Just to mess with our heads, we were traveling on the first day of daylight saving time.  Plus, Arizona is a different time zone than Nevada.  Plus, we had just flown in from Minnesota which is in even another time zone.  Plus, Arizona doesn’t do daylight saving time, but Nevada does.  Seriously, wrap your head around that.  We had a heck of a time figuring out what time we needed to leave my mom’s house in order to be in Sedona for a 2 p.m. tour we had scheduled.

But we managed it.

Prior to leaving home, we had read a travel tip that suggested taking a trolley tour when first arriving in town to get a good overview of the area and to decide what areas you want to go back to explore further.

So we had booked the Sedona Hi-Points Tour through Red Rock Magic Trolley.

I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed when I realized that our tour was in a van, not a cute little trolley.  Once again, I hadn’t read the fine print.  Only the shorter 55 minute tours took place in a trolley, our 2 hour tour was with a van.  But in the end, it was a fantastic tour.  In addition to the three of us, there was only one other couple in our group so it really felt like we had a private tour.  Our guide was super nice and very knowledgeable about Sedona.  We visited Bell Rock, The Chapel of the Holy Cross, and Airport Mesa.  Our guide explained the energy vortexes that Sedona is known for, and even did a little demonstration at the Airport Mesa, which is considered to be the most powerful vortex in Sedona.  I have to admit, I’m a bit of a skeptic about these things.  I didn’t get any sort of magical tingly feeling, but hey, maybe my chakras were a little cleaner after that.  Who knows?  My mom wasn’t up for much walking so she opted to stay in the van at Bell Rock and at the Chapel and our guide stayed with her and regaled her with stories of Sedona.  He was super nice to her and didn’t make her feel like she was an added burden at all.  It was handy having a driver to drop us off at both of these locations because they were very crowded and parking was a nightmare, so the tour was worth it just for that.

After our tour concluded, we settled in to our hotel.  We stayed at the Best Western Plus Arroyo Roble Hotel in the Uptown area.  The view from our patio was pretty spectacular.

Just behind the hotel you can walk down to Oak Creek, and my sister and I did that just before sunset on our first night.

It was so peaceful and picturesque.

And having just flown in from Minnesota (where it was 7 degrees) the previous day, it just felt amazing to be outside in such beautiful surroundings.

The hotel also offered a fire pit.

Seriously, does that look like a fake backdrop or what?  Nope, that was our actual view.  Some other travelers at the hotel joined us out there after dark and it was fun chatting with them.

The pool area was lovely as well.

Although it was fairly cool while we were there, the pool was heated and people were using it in the afternoon.  We hadn’t brought swimsuits though, so we missed out on that.

I should mention that this hotel is right smack dab in the heart of the most touristy part of Sedona called Uptown.  I didn’t get any photos of that area, but it’s full of over-priced restaurants, cheap souvenir shops and LOTS of tourists.  It’s a strange juxtaposition to have all of that beautiful nature out the back, while being steps away from all of that intense action out front.  It was interesting to note that everything closed up fairly early though.  By 8 p.m. the area out front was practically deserted.

I have absolutely zero complaints about this hotel.  The customer service was fantastic.  In fact, on our last night there were weren’t able to get into the safe in our room and my sister had put the car keys in there while we went to dinner.  After the hotel staff couldn’t get it open either, they located someone at 9 pm to come and drill the safe open so that we wouldn’t have to give up our plan for a sunrise hike the next morning.  The included breakfast buffet was really nice too.

And speaking of breakfast, I think the best advice we got from our tour guide was to get up before dawn and do some of the popular hikes before breakfast to avoid the crowds.  In other words, we had to be at the trailhead at rope drop!

Now, I should preface this next bit by pointing out that my sister and I aren’t getting any younger.  She’s nursing a knee injury, and I have tendonitis issues in one of my heels.  Add on to that the fact that we are both afraid of heights.  So we planned on hiking the easier trails in Sedona, and not doing any climbing.  But for those of you in the same boat, these hikes are still well worth it for seeing some pretty spectacular views.

Our sunrise hike on the first morning was to Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte.

We started off down this trail headed towards Bell Rock just as the sun was coming up.

As you can see, the trail is pretty flat at first.  You can opt to climb Bell Rock, and there were plenty of people doing that, but I got sweaty palms just looking at other people standing at the edge up there.  So we chose to just walk around the perimeter, which still offered awesome scenery.

Just to be clear (for those who may also want to take this hike), the trail wasn’t flat sand the entire time.  There was some easy rock scrambling involved too.  But it was very doable.

Next we headed off towards Courthouse Butte.

The butte is pretty darn impressive.

By the way, a butte is defined as an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top (similar to but narrower than a mesa).

As impressive as that view is, if you turn around, the vista from here is even more spectacular.

After hiking for a couple of hours, we headed back to our hotel for breakfast.  After breakfast we decided to check out a popular shopping area called Tlaquepaque.

None of us are big shoppers, but the area was so pretty that we could have wandered around in there for quite some time just admiring it.

Tlaquepaque was designed in the 1970’s and the design was based on traditional Mexican villages.

There were pretty little plazas around every corner.

And the tilework was really gorgeous.

I really did feel as though I was in another part of the world entirely.  But then, this is completely different from anything you’d find in Minnesota!

We did a shorter sunrise hike the next morning before heading back to mom’s house.

I have to say that the hike into Fay Canyon wasn’t quite as impressive as the previous day’s hike, but it was still rather magical.

As with the Bell Rock hike, there was only one other car in the parking lot when we arrived, but it was almost full when we left.  All the way back to the hotel we saw cars lining the roads at each trail head that weren’t there when we arrived at dawn.

So my biggest q tip for you if you ever get to Sedona is to be sure and rope drop the hiking trails.  They are absolutely gorgeous in the morning light.  You won’t have them entirely to yourself, but there won’t be hoards of people on them yet.  And best of all, after all of that hiking you don’t feel one bit guilty about that extra sausage you’ll have with breakfast later!

Be sure to stay tuned because I’ll be sharing the rest of my trip out west next week and I’m planning a fabulous giveaway to go with it.  In the meantime, I have a dresser that I just finished up that I’ll be sharing on Friday.  See you then!