After our lovely encounter, we continued to make our way through Arizona and got to Flagstaff about an hour before sunset. According to the map, the city of Flagstaff is in the National Forest, so we thought we should have no problem finding a place to camp. Apparently the land of many uses also means the land of many residential uses. We eventually happened on a pull off, on some street off of Lake Mary Road. It looked like a nice enough place, and we watched a very pretty sunset.
Unfortunately, we came to realize that we had certainly not been the first people to fine this nice spot. There was a half burned telephone book, and beer bottles everywhere. It really ruins it when you find a beautiful spot, only to realize that it has been used as a trash dump. We were discussing the rational behind this, and really can't come up with one..."don't want the old lady to know I've been drinking" ? I don't know, but it really makes me wonder about people...but anyway enough of my litter rant for now.
Next day we drove the 30 miles down Oak Creek Canyon to Sedona. It's a gorgeous town, but very strange. It seems to be full of retired people, new-agers, and people on vacation.
Example: I walked into the gas station and was told to have a glorious day, well that's nice of them I thought. Then I over hear the conversation she's having with the guy behind me which includes bailing his dad out of jail, when the next full moon will be, his beautiful necklace, and a new moon ceremony....ok...
I figure that I could deal with this mixture, I don't mind weird people, but then Mike brought up the fact that some morning I'm gonna wake up a little grumpy, walk into that gas station and that lady is gonna say something like "oo it looks like the moon has cast its shadow upon you last night" and it's gonna be the last straw.
As for now, the riding seems very different, very spiky,and pretty cool, and we have a pretty nice, free place to camp, although it's a little farther away then we were hoping.
Here are some pictures
Tomorrow we're going to try a group mountain bike ride at one of the shops... I wonder what intermediate will mean
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