On Sunday morning we went out to Cave Creek Coffee Company to get breakfast and sort out our day. I'm kind of sorry that I didn't take a picture inside of "C4," because it's the kind of coffee shop you can only find in a tiny Main Street town like Cave Creek. The iced coffee is cold-brewed, so it's not just that it isn't hot coffee poured over ice -- this stuff has NEVER been hot. There are two chessboards, one inside and one outside. There's free internet access and a public guitar. The bagels are good. The BAGELS -- I just want to make sure you're getting this -- this is a TINY ARIZONA TOWN, and the BAGELS are GOOD. I could live in this place.
Jess and Sarah Live at Red Rocks
We decided to head up to Sedona, which is notoriously hippy-dippy but also notoriously beautiful. We decided that we wouldn't go actively hunting for energy vortices, though I'm sure Sarah wouldn't have hated to stumble into one. (Myself, I'm sure I wouldn't know an energy vortex if it came up and bit me and said "hi, I'm an energy vortex." And then I had to go to the hospital for a rabies shot and it was all a big fiasco.) The plan was to take a Pink Jeep tour, probably the most touristy thing we could ever do, but also said to be spectacular.
The drive to Sedona was about an hour and a half, which gave me a chance to really take in the Arizona landscape. I'd never seen saguaros before, and while I don't believe in dismissing Eastern mountains as "mere hills" (fuck you, West! Mountains can be smallish and greenish and still be beautiful! Just like breasts! Minus the "greenish" part!), I have to admit that the Arizona mountains are unbelievable. The colors in the varying light are almost opalescent, and the crags and crenellations catch light and shadow beautifully. So I didn't mind the drive at all... but then, I wasn't the one driving. I took this photo out of the car window:
The rocks near Sedona are called "red rocks," but I assumed they would be sort of terra-cotta colored. Oh no. They are red, buddy. Super-red. Much redder, in fact, than they look in this picture:
I was
unfortunately remiss in getting a picture of the sign for Dry Beaver
Creek. Likewise the sign that made it obvious we were in Sedona
proper: "Crystal Palace: Metaphysical Department Store."
We signed up for the Jeep tour, and did some shopping around before it started. We wanted to get some music, because it turned out that the truck took CDs and I'd only brought a handful of tapes. Unfortunately, we were in Sedona, so the only music available to us was New-Agey crap and Celtic music. We decided to wait.
By 4, when the Jeep tour was scheduled, clouds were rolling in. As the Jeeps returned from the previous tours, it started to rain heavily. But they were still game for taking us up a mountain, so we figured we were game, too. We climbed into a pink Jeep with a retired Long Island cop (who took shotgun) and his son, and covered ourselves with blankets, as the Jeep had no sides. Then we headed out, intrepidly (our driver) or dubiously (the rest of us). As the Jeep climbed up the canyon rim, the rain began to turn into hard, icy snow, which pelted us through the open sides of the car. The mountains were dim, fog-wreathed shapes, and then weren't visible at all. The driver told us stories about Westward expansion, and the three young people in the back of the Jeep shot each other sympathetic looks about the biting snow, the boisterous cop, and the bumpy driving of our clearly competent but uncomfortably cavalier guide.
By the time we got to the apex of our trip, almost nothing was visible but the road. As we came back down the canyon side, though, the snow stopped and the clouds broke, presenting us with a breathtaking sunset just as we reached a perfect picture-taking point.
The
very beginning of sunset. Our timing was frankly excellent.
A
view of other mountaintops on which it is still snowing.
Sarah
with our faithful pink steed.
A
sunset photo. I like how it goes all Maxfield Parrish in the middle
left.
Another
sunset photo. This sunset merited much recording.
A
sunset photo with chicks attached.
Did I Just Accidentally Have a Homo Moment?
After our Jeep tour, we drove back to Cave Creek, and gussied ourselves up for a trip to the dyke bar. Okay, I'm totally lying -- I only brought fatigues and T-shirts, so no gussying occurred for me. But we did go to the (probably only) Scottsdale dyke bar, which is located in a strip mall, like everything else in Scottsdale, and has the somewhat unfortunate name of "Ain't Nobody's Business." Perhaps more unfortunately, the neon sign that set it off from the other strip mall stores officially read "Ain't Nobody's Biz," but the "Ain't Nob" part was unlit. Sarah and I speculated that the handful of confused straight guys in the place had meant to go to another bar called Ody's Biz and had been cruelly misled. Speaking of bar names, do please remind me that when Sarah goes to Tel Aviv, I intend to call her regular gay bar the Heebie G.B.
Sunday night at Ody's Biz was uneventful -- we had some drinks and struggled unsuccessfully with the computerized darts machine, but we noticed that Monday is Karaoke night, so we planned to go back the next day.