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The regal red rocks

The Sedona landscape is a feast for the eyes and a booming tourist attraction

by Dwayne Brandly
Published October 2011

Sounds like we were living in a song I heard somewhere—Winslow, Winona, Flagstaff and then Sedona. Winslow and Winona are very nice looking towns right in the middle of the Arizona desert. I don’t know what keeps them going but they seem to be thriving communities. The drive west was extremely windy, sometimes blowing the truck and trailer way over to the side of the road. It was blowing directly north and as we were headed west it kept us near the right shoulder of the road.

After getting settled at the campground in Flagstaff, we headed south to Sedona. What a beautiful drive, but I am glad we did not have the trailer hitched up. The road is quite windy and fairly narrow in some places. The road line on our gps looked like we were following a tangled ribbon of spaghetti. The scenery, however, more than made up for the stress of the drive, although I couldn’t look much. When we got into Sedona, the towering red rock bluffs surrounding the town were even more beautiful.

All the buildings in town are made of red coloured adobe to match the rocks. Extremely beautiful. The town itself is quite unique, with two levels of stores that can be accessed from the street or an upper level boardwalk. There are tourist shops, fine art, jewelry and pottery galleries, restaurants and jeep tours. We also visited some of the unique buildings, such as the chapel in the rocks and the downtown plaza with its fountain and statues. You can get to Sedona by driving north from Phoenix on the way to see the Grand Canyon, or by making the short trip south from Flagstaff. Well worth the drive.

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Betty and Dwayne Brandly started RVing shortly after they got married in 1965. Dwayne built a homemade tent trailer and off they went. That lasted until the kids were crawling around with sticky poplar seed pods clinging to their diapers; they looked like small porcupines. Betty said, "go and get a real trailer with a bathroom." Over the last 45 years they have gone to Disneyland, numerous places in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan, and many of the northern US states. They have travelled for both work and pleasure, and Dwayne’s love for fishing has taken them into some backwoods places a trailer should not really have gone. Many trips were made to Craven, Saskatchewan to take in the original Big Valley country music festival.  Now that they are both retired they are taking a leisurely trip for the next couple of months, just to see where the road takes them. These weekly updates will tell us where they have been.

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