West coast trip- let's start with our airplane ride. We didn't check in on time so that the mister and I could sit together, so we ended up sitting on opposite aisle seats. It was ok because I sat next to a sweet lady who became a friend by the end of the flight. She was on her way to a convention and was her second time going. She was recommending all these places to go in Sedona. I truly appreciated her because she made the airplane ride not seem so scary and long. Oh, and the hubby had a woman that was breast feeding her kid next to him, so his trip was alright too. Lol.
So we get to Phoenix and boy was it hot. I mean, even in the shadow I felt like we were standing in an oven. On our way to Sedona in our "ok" rental car we were fascinated by the mountains and the beautiful landscape of Arizona. The road signs were also something new and hilarious, i.e, "Watch for falling rocks", "Please turn off AC and roll down windows to prevent overheating of the car", "Watch out for wildlife". Ok, maybe they weren't hilarious, just a little scary.
We get to Sedona and our jaws were on the floor. I felt like we were in some beautiful painting. The colors, the height, the majesty of it all. The mister parked the car for our first hiking experience. It was Bell Rock and even this seemed somewhat intimidating. We weren't the only ones, there were lots of families and couples just taking what seemed like a normal hike to them.
See, before coming to this trip we made sure to come prepared with our hiking shoes, socks, proper clothing attire, even our "safari" hats like mama Tarullo calls them. But these families came with normal clothing, sandals, and no hats. Oh well, better to be over prepared than under. Five minutes into our hiking I was sweating, but in my defense it was hot. 90 degrees feeling like 100. What shocked me so much as we were just halfway was the amount of children hiking! I mean, they were way further up than us and just scaling. They damn well put me to shame.
On our next stop, we decided to do a few sightseeing spots and then stopped at this park that had a nice little creek. This creek was so serene and refreshing. It's always comes as a shock to me when I can see at the bottom of any type of body of water. (Thanks for traumatizing me Chicago river.) We walked to this place where people were just swimming and relaxing by the side of the creek with their dogs. On this little part of our trip two things happened, good and bad. The mister and I dropped our stuff and crossed the creek on this fallen tree trunk. I was so proud of myself because I crossed it faster than him with my monkey skills. As i was on the other side, I decided to take off my shoes and dip my feet in. It was cold. It was so cold and I couldn't believe people were swimming in it but after giving it a minute or two I was able to get used to it. I was in Ariel mode. Haha! Now on to the bad part- well see the thing is, I did not know how to get back to the other side because I was not able to do the same thing I did coming over. So I thought that walking across the creek in the water would be fine. Oh, silly me. First mistake, I didn't think it through. Second mistake, was the way I decided to get in the water and that was by jumping down on to a rock that was in the creek. I'm sure you know what happened next. With one hand holding on to my huge hiking boots and socks and the other hand trying to support myself as I jumped down, I touched the rock in the creek with my toe and felt the slickness to it, it was the worst "oh shit" moment of my life. As I was submerged halfway in the creek, a boot fell out of my hand, and I looked at it float by past me. It was my second "oh shit" moment. As I was rapidly trying get up, I fall down a second time but this time the hand that had the other shoe went down with me as I instinctively tried to prevent myself from falling on my ass. Third "oh shit" moment. I was finally able to get up and get my shoe, with a sigh of relief, I look to where the husband was only to see him still sitting down and shaking his head. I screamed, "you should've at least taken a picture!" As I walk out of the creek, the couple that was swimming on the side were smiling as they asked me if I was ok. I said yeah but my boots weren't.
Walking towards my husband as he was still shaking his head made me feel like I was back to being 7 years old and in trouble with my parents. But I really was in trouble. See, the next day we were supposed to hike the Grand Canyon and my waterproof boots felt like they were water beds for my tiny feet. I was so scared that this would ruin our trip. So I squeezed (have you ever tried squeezing hiking boots? it's impossible) pressing, shaking and shaking and shaking the boots but it seemed like it was to no avail. I searched up how to dry shoes as fast as possible and I found out that stuffing newspapers inside was one of them. So throughout the rest of the day I dangled my shoes out the window, hoping the dry heat from Arizona would help me, and changing the newspaper every hour. That same day my husband said we were to hike up a mountain. Trying to remember what other shoes I brought I thought of my white squeaky clean sneakers, which I forgot to bring socks for, and flip flops. Picked the sneakers and the husband let me borrow a pair of black socks. (That is why in some of the pictures I posted on facebook show me wearing white shoes with black socks.) I hope no one of you caught that but if you did now you know that I have a good explanation for my fashion faux pas.
So, to close out this long ass post of our FIRST day from our west coast trip, we hiked that mountain with my now slightly orange white sneakers, I kissed my Prince Charming at the top of the world, drove to Flagstaff in plain darkness through a mountain at 25 mph, boots outside the window, and ended the night with a much needed burger and beer.
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