Home for the Holidays

This is the same image I have up on my Hart & Soul blog for Christmas tomorrow. Can you imagine this being the home you go to for Christmas each year!

While on our Sedona trip over Thanksgiving weekend, we had the privilege of visiting Montezuma Castle (above) near Camp Verde, Arizona. Talk about breath-taking! I'm still trying to get my head around cliff-dwelling. What happens to people who are afraid of heights...or does that just not happen, at 100 feet above the valley floor! (Montezuma Castle photo album)

Now segue to another dwelling, Tuzigoot (pronounced two-zee-gute), approximately 15 miles west of Montezuma Castle, as the eagle flies.


This isn't a cliff dwelling but it has a similar kind of amazing feel to what it would be like to go "home for the holidays." Its summit is 120 feet above the Verde Valley. Both places were dwellings of the Southern Sinagua farmers in the 1100-1400s CE and both had clusters of rooms where individual families lived. (Tuzigoot photo album)

Hopefully you're home for the holidays, wherever home is for you this year. We had a wonderful celebration with our kids (Amy, Mark and Nicholas) this past Sunday. Donica is with her extended family south of Atlanta tomorrow. And I will be with my dear sister Ruth and hubby Don in Michigan starting next week, over the New Year. Maybe I'll get my fill of snow?! I sure hope so.

In case I don't post again before January...

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year!

Let's count our blessings!

The Apache Trail Loop

The "problem" with taking wonderful trips, as we did over the Thanksgiving weekend, is that I always have so many photos to get ready for albums!

This time I decided to do it in bits-n-pieces to make it easier to tackle...for me more than anything. So, we'll start with what we did while in Phoenix on Thanksgiving Day, with the afternoon before us.

We decided to drive the 40-mile Apache Trail loop from the east of Phoenix, driving clockwise from Apache Junction through the Superstition Mountains towards the Roosevelt Dam and around back to Phoenix.

Talk about rough but beautiful terrain! Most of the trip we thought the skies would open up and drench us, but we were lucky and stayed dry. Here's the photo album.





Along the way, we saw lots of cacti! In fact, it was like a forest of cacti, most of which was the Saguaro variety.

What we didn't know, however, was that for the rest of the week, once we drove north out of Phoenix, we would not see any of it again! That maybe surprised us more than anything.







Towards the end of our looooong drive, sometimes traveling at only 5 mph because of the treacherous, dirt roads, filled with ruts and gullies from a recent rain, we reached Roosevelt Dam. It was starting to get dark, so thank goodness the road became paved again for our return to Phoenix.




The last part to Phoenix was mostly barren desert like what you'd expect in that area of the country. But I had my eyes peeled open and was glad to catch this copper mine through the car window as we sped by. It nicely went with the territory in what I think of the wild, wild west.





So, this is the beginning of the Sedona trip from almost a month ago! I'll keep working on the rest of the photos, of course, in between the holiday events. But now we're getting ready for our Christmas celebration with the kids here on Sunday. The gifts are wrapped and the house is cleaned. Just have to go buy the groceries for the festivities! On Christmas day we'll be with Donica's family.

As you are probably doing the same, please take time to rest and pamper yourself with peace and quiet. And just breathe!