It's my Birthday and I'll blog if I want to!

I've asked Robert my partner to write the blog today, since he's feeling neglected and not getting attention and I need a little break. Here he goes!

Wednesday dawned just the same beautiful way it has all week here in Sedona, except one of us turned a year older. We decided to step it down a little from the frantic pace we've had - now it's called pacing yourself to extract the most out of the time you have and savor the experience.

The dirty hippy man from Old Town Cottonwood was very interesting and whispered things in my ear like, "headless Hopi," "mystical energy," "peace and love," and "really bad roads." He was referencing a heritage site called Honanki, where Hopi ancestors had lived and left petrograms on the walls of the canyons where their homes were.

The beginning of our drive there wasn't too bad. It required us to take a dirt road where signs warned us of falling boulders and switchback turns, but by this point we were too intrigued to turn back. So ten bumpy, dusty, organ-crushing miles later we made it there, climbing into a canyon where the cave dwellings were. We could barely see through the windows with the dust and the mud, but It was so worth it.

Nobody was there except for a very nice lady ranger who gave us a talk about respecting the site, taking nothing from it and leaving no trash behind.

We entered a trail that took us into these enormous outcroppings of rock where there were remains of three story cave dwellings where Hopi and Navajo ancestors lived over 800 years ago. What made it really exceptional were the many petrograms painted and etched as decoration of the walls of the canyon. They were whimsical, delightful, playful, yet symbolic and we were invited to search the walls to find little animals, the impression of a hand, and bold white circular clan signs you would have been able to see from miles away.

This might be a bore to some people, but Tim and I have been exploring these spaces, both separately and now together, for many years. These are sacred Native American lands and finally the feds have reinforced rules that no one is to touch or remove any stones from this sacred space. Remarkably, we only saw one bit of modern graffiti by someone who needed to make his own mark on history.

This all took an hour or so and after a quick snack in the car and more hydrating, we sped away in a cloud of dust, now more familiar with the road. The two of us were happy boys, hooting and hollering.

After this experience, a gentle hike seemed in order. We found the Faye Canyon trail, a verdant, cool, and shady box canyon hike. The path was covered in rust colored sand and lined with fragrant black pinon trees. Tiny purple and yellow flowers were abundant. We enjoyed the susurration of the wind and the juxtaposition of the red rocks against the cobalt blue sky.

(Is it pinon bark or alligator skin? You decide)

Happily, it wasn't all that crowded and we enjoyed the solitude. The trail ended abruptly at a giant boulder field, that backed up against the back wall of the canyon. I saw a little man waving at me and begging me to take a picture for an instagram moment. Oh wait, it was Tim underneath a giant godzilla rock. He had climbed about 100 feet up the cliff, while I had stayed back to protect my ACL and ankles for the next few weeks.

We headed back to Sedona, enjoyed a quiet dinner celebration of my birthday, while looking forward to some upcoming days at the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for letting me share, folks, and a moment in the sun. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Robert.