April 26 - May 16, 2021. Pandemic Road Trip #2

                                  

Still concerned about flying, but wanting to get away, we planned our 2^nd pandemic road trip.  The weather is getting nicer, things are starting to open up, we’ve been vaccinated so we’re good to go!  Although we went a similar direction back in the Fall of 2020 (Pandemic road trip #1), we wanted to stay in different towns, and see and experience new things, so we planned a different route for most of the trip.

We started our trip on Monday morning, 4/26.  Our first stop was Couer d’Alene, which was about a 5-hour drive from home.  We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites. That evening we took a Sunset dinner cruise around Lake Couer d’Alene.  Although a little chilly, it was a beautiful night and we had a good view of the “super pink moon”, which only happens a few times a year.  Our cruise included dinner which was salmon and prime rib as well as salads, and vegetables.  

 

 

Tuesday morning, we had a hot breakfast at the hotel then we were on our way to Idaho Falls, which is a pretty town with the Snake River running through it.  It was about a 7-hour drive, through Butte, Montana. Our hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, was next to the river although our room did not have the river view.  That evening we had dinner at the New Hong Kong Chinese restaurant. 

 

Our hotel was not serving a hot breakfast, so we stopped at the Black Bear Diner in Idaho Falls, before hitting the road for our 3 ½- hour drive to Park City, Utah.  Park City is surrounded by beautiful mountains (some had a little snow still) and was the home to several of the competitions during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.

 

In Park City, we stayed 2 nights at the Park Plaza, which is an RCI property. It’s an older hotel but pretty inside and very comfortable.  Our room had a patio and a fireplace.  Dinner the first night was at the No Name Saloon and Grill which was very good.  I had the Philly Cheesesteak and Doug had Fish and Chips.  

 

Thursday morning, we had breakfast at the Eating Establishment right on Main Street, which has a lot of little stores and shops, but is on a hill.  Afterward we walked across the street for coffee.  We parked at the top of the hill and took a walk down to the bottom.  Doug stayed close to the car so when I was ready, he came by and picked me up.  I don’t think I could have made it back up that hill!

 

Later that day we took a drive to the Sundance Mountain Resort which Robert Redford originally owned, but now it is privately owned. It is in a beautiful setting in the mountains.  From there we went to the Olympic Park where several of the events were held during the 2002 Winter Olympics.  Dinner that evening was at the Windy Ridge Café.  The weather was nice enough to eat outdoors, where our visitor was a little 3-year-old that was going to every table wanting to know everyone’s name.  Very cute!

Friday morning, we drove about 5 hours to the town of Kanab.  It was a pretty drive through the mountains near Bryce Canyon and some of the places we had visited last September.  We went to the Rocking V Café for dinner which has a western theme with several things to see on their property.

 

Saturday, we drove 5 hours or so to the Sedona Springs Resort where we stayed for next 7 days.   We had been to Sedona back in May 2018, but it was a new resort for us.  I had gotten a studio instead of a one bedroom, which was okay, but it would have been nice to have a little bigger room.

 

Sedona it beautiful and we didn’t get tired of seeing the red rocks and formations.  The resort had a pool, so I got to enjoy it several times, and just enjoyed relaxing and reading while Doug was catching up on work.

 

Our friends Patti and Harold were in town and met us Sunday and Monday evening for dinner.  Sunday, we ate at the Cowboy Club on their patio (excellent food!) and then Monday, at the Corner Table, which was near their hotel in Oak Creek Canyon.  

 

We took a tour of Boynton Canyon on the Magic Trolley, went to Jerome one day, and another took a 4-hour train ride on the Verde Canyon Railroad.  Jerome is an old copper mining town with very few residents.  We walked around for a while, then had lunch at the Bobby D’s, a very busy barbeque joint.  We also enjoyed the Verde Canyon train ride.  

   

One of the days we took a drive through Oak Creek Canyon and stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Cross and several viewpoints along the way.  We ate lunch at the Oak Creek Brewing Company while visiting Tlaquepaque Village.

        

 

Some of the other places we ate while in Sedona were Tortes de Fuego (great food!), Thai Spices (yummy and brought back leftovers for a 2^nd meal), the Coffee Pot for breakfast (over 100 omelet choices!), Olde Sedona Bar (just so-so) and the Open Range Grill and Tavern uptown for lunch.  Several places closed early or were only open for take-out since there was a shortage of people willing to go back to work yet, especially in the food service industry.  This wasn’t unique to just Sedona, we saw this all along the way.

 

Saturday, 5/8 we checked out of the resort and drove to Goldfield Ghost Town near Apache Junction, AZ.  It was a fun place to visit and have lunch at the Mammoth Steakhouse.  We spent that night in Mesa at the Best Western and had dinner at the Mesa Cracker Barrel (one of our favorites!)

   

Sunday, we drove to Imperial Beach, California for a 4-day visit to Doug’s old stomping grounds. While there we were able to visit with Marty and Glen, had dinner with Glen, Bart, John, and Jim one night.  Since learning of Glen’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis during our last visit, we really wanted to see them again.  Although some change, we had a nice visit, and we were both were glad we got to see them again. 

  

 

We ate at Jalisco’s one night with the group, the Coronado Brewing Company, lunch at the Tin Fishat the end of the pier, Bali Hai on Shelter Island for lunch, and one night at Panera for dinner.  Even with the day’s being a bit hazy we were able to catch a sunset on of the evenings.     

 

On Thursday we started heading north, which to me marks the coming to an end for our road trip. We drove to our next destination, stopping for lunch with Stefan at Bob’s Big Boy (a tradition, it seems!).  We stayed in Pismo Beach where we had a great dinner at Ada’s Fish House, then got to see another beautiful sunset on the Pismo Beach Pier.

                                    

 

Friday was a long day, about 7+ hours’ drive to Redding where we met Kristi for dinner at Marie Calendar’s (yes, the still exist!) and spent the night at the Hampton Inn. 

 

Saturday was another long day to the Brad and Kaycie’s in Oregon City and the chance to see grandkids, although we both were tired.  

 

We got home Sunday afternoon.  I’m ready to start planning our next road trip but in the meantime, we will finally get to do some long-awaited traveling via water and air.  Stayed tuned for more!

Sedona and Grand Canyon AZ - May 6th-14th, 2018

I have always heard that Sedona is a beautiful place. and have wanted to go for quite some time.  We had the opportunity to use RCI points so we booked a week at the Sedona Pines Resort.

We flew into Phoenix on Sunday, May 6th.  From Phoenix it's a nice leisurely 2 hour drive.  Along the way we stopped for lunch at Lenny's Burgers.  It was a small diner style so we chose to eat outside even though it was almost 100 degrees out.  The burgers were great and in a short while we were on the road again. 

As we drove in to Sedona we were struck with the beauty of the surrounding red rock formations.  It was majestic and everywhere we looked were more mountains and formations.  We got to Sedona Pines Resort around 5pm so we got checked in and settled in our unit.  

Sedona Pines is located about 6 miles from Sedona and consists of about 150 individual "cottages" which were small manufactured units set in a beautiful park setting.  Each unit consists of a small living area with sofa bed on one end, galley kitchen, bath and bedroom on the other end.  The kitchen had a full size refrigerator, a stove top, microwave, dishwasher, but no oven (which we didn't miss at all).  It was clean, nicely decorated and comfortable even though small.

The grounds had an activity center, putt-putt golf, an office/lobby, a large heated pool and hot tub, two other locations with hot tubs only, a fitness room,  laundry (free), and Italian Restaurant (Bella Vita).  It also had RV hookup spaces.

That evening we had dinner at Bella Vita which was very good but we thought over-priced. We both had Fettuccine Alfredo which came with bread but no salad. It was good and in fact we could have shared it. Instead we took our leftovers to have for dinner the next night.

On Monday morning we had breakfast at the Activity Center which was an opportunity for local tor vendors to share their tours with the newcomers.  We already had a Trolley Tour and a Grand Canyon train ride booked, but we decided to include a Jerome tour and a Chuckwagon Dinner Show. Each vendor offered a drawing and I won a hat to add to Doug's never ending collection of baseball hats.

After breakfast we took a drive up to Sedona.  We stopped at Tlaquepaque Arts and Craft Village, which consisted of tons of galleries, a few restaurants.  It was laid out beautifully and although we didn't buy anything it was fun to meander through the village.  We left there and drove around that area stopping at a few of the vistas to take pictures.  We also drove to Uptown Sedona which is the heart of the tourist area, and was very busy.  We were later told that it was the area that the locals avoid. On our way back we stopped for a few groceries at Safeway.

Later that day we took a 90 minute Magic Trolley Tour.  Our driver pointed out several of the formations and told us the history of the area.  He drove us past Tlaquepague then on down through Oak Creek Village along highway 179. We stopped several places to take pictures as he told us about the local area.  We drove up to Chapel of the Holy Cross and had an opportunity to spend several minutes there.  


The chapel was commissioned by Marguerite Brunswig Staude who was inspired after seeing the Empire State Building and wanted to build a chapel.  She first attempted to have it built in Budapest, but after WWII broke out she decided to have it built in the U.S.  When she saw the beautiful formations in Sedona, in particular one called the "Two Sisters" with "Madonna and Child" nearby, she felt it was a sign from above to build it there.  With the help of Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) they built what is today known as one of the "Seven Man-Made Wonders of Arizona".  It is beautiful both inside and out and once you are on top of the mountain where it is you have a beautiful view of the mountains surrounding it.

We continued on after leaving the Chapel stopping at different places for pictures.  Once back at the resort I went to the pool for awhile then we had our leftover dinner from the night before.

Tuesday morning we were picked up in a van, along with another couple and for a tour of Jerome.  Our guide was very informative and as we drove through the towns of Cottonwood and Clarkdale, he pointed out historic things and told us about Jerome which is an old copper mining town.  It is now almost a ghost town compared to the thousands of people living there when the copper mine was working.  It is located high up on the hills above Cottonwood. 

We stopped at Tuzigoot National Monument which is a prehistoric Indian pueblo built between 1125 and 1400 A.D. 
  
Once we reached Jerome we were escorted into Grapes Restaurant for lunch and had about 1 1/2 hours of free time to explore the town.   The Haunted Hamburger and the Asylum were other restaurants that had been recommended to us several times, however we will have to visit them another time.  After lunch our tour continued down a steep and windy dirt road to the site of the old copper mine.

After we got back to our place I went to the pool for awhile and that evening we went into Uptown and had a great dinner at the Cowboy Club.  Again, we brought home our leftovers for another easy dinner later that week.

Wednesday we stayed around the resort most of the day.  I spent some time at the pool and in the afternoon there was a putt-putt golf tourney.       We played with 2 other guests -  I got the only "hole-in-one" and won a dream catcher.  One of the other guests won the tournament and won a hat.  It was fun but really too hot to be outdoors for that long.

That evening we drove to the Blazin' M Ranch in Cottonwood for a Chuckwagon dinner.  What a fun experience.  On the ranch are several western buildings, a saloon, gift store, shooting gallery, old time photo shop, etc. We took a wagon ride around the ranch and saw horses, alpacas, and other farm animals.  Soon it was time to go into the "barn" for dinner.  We sat at long wooden tables with other guests.  Each table took their turn going through the galley to get our food which was bbq chicken, ribs, potatoes, coleslaw, corn and a biscuit.  Lemonade, tea and coffee to drink and warm apple crisp with ice cream for dessert.  While eating dinner we were entertained by several musicians.  There was plenty of humor and overall it was a great night.  They ended the night singing "Ghostriders in the Sky" and out the windows on the sides rode a masked man with a cape.  The strobes lights flashing made it all the more fun to see as they made several trips along the windows. 

On Thursday we had no particular plans so we decided to take a drive on our own to see a few more things.  Our first stop was at the Coffee Pot Cafe which was named after the red rock formation on the hill above. It has been there for 50 years and is known for their 101 omelet selections.  The food was great and we will definitely go again some day.  From there we drove to Montezuma's Castle National Monument which was built into the side of a mountain over 800 years ago.  After spending a little time there we drove on the scenic loop right off of 89 between our place and Sedona.  That afternoon I went to the pool for awhile then we had dinner at Los Rosales Mexican Restaurant.

Friday we were picked up at 7 am by a van which took us to another stop for 4 more people, then to the town of Williams.  To get there we drove through Sedona, up to Flagstaff  on portions of old Route 66 until we got to Williams.  We then boarded a train to go to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  The train ride was fun, with some entertainment.  First a gunslinger, then a cowboy playing a violin.  We were given a box lunch (could have passed on that one!).

When we reached the south rim (2 hrs) we had about an hour to explore the area before our guide picked us up. There was a lodge, the Hopi House and several other things to see.  We got some beautiful pictures of the vastness of the canyon which we knew we were just seeing a very small bit of it.  Our guide picked us up outside the El Tovar Hotel and we continued on our  journey. 

We made several more stops on our way around a small portion of the south rim. Our final stop in the park was at the Desert View Watchtower where I climbed to the top floor (4 flights) for awesome views of the canyon below. 

Once we left the park we stopped at Cameron Indian Trading Post (did not buy anything), then we were on our way back to Sedona.  We got back to our place after 6pm so it was a long day.  We were both hungry so we went to the Golden Goose Grill and had a great dinner. 

Saturday we drove back up to Flagstaff thinking that we would be able to visit some of the old buildings that were part of Historic Route 66.  It was a long drive and once we got to the Visitor Center we didn't find them much help.  They indicated there was nothing much to see in Flagstaff and suggested we drive to Seligman (another 75 minutes!) if we wanted to see Route 66 buildings.  After spending the day before on the road for hours, then driving over an hour to Flagstaff we opted just to have lunch and head back to Sedona.  We ate at Majerles Sports Grill, had a great meal then headed back. I ended the evening with time at the pool and we finished off some of the food that we had left as we were heading out the next day.

Sunday, which was Mother's Day, we checked out about 11 then headed into town one last time.  We stopped at Starbucks (a treat these days) then went to the Original Red Dirt Shirts shop for t-shirts before getting on the road to Phoenix.  I hated to leave this beautiful area, but we were flying home Monday and didn't want to make the trip early Monday morning.  About 1/2 way to Phoenix we stopped at Rock Springs Cafe for lunch.  Unfortunately, since it was Mother's Day we had over an hour wait but there were things to see so the time went fast.  We finally got in and had lunch which of course was too much food.  We saved room for dessert since their pies were what they are known for... I had Rhubarb and Doug had Lemon, both were very good.

Once we got to the Best Western Airport Inn in Phoenix Doug took our rental car back to the airport and I went to the pool.  Doug was able to get a ride back with the hotel shuttle.  That evening neither one of us was hungry so we didn't go anywhere.  Doug had discovered a Waffle House nearby so in the morning we Uber'd over to it, had a quick, yummy breakfast then headed back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport.

Another week come and gone, another beautiful place to see. I can't wait for our next adventure!

Book:  The Orphan Train