The Arizona adventure: Sedona

On the regular, I’m guilty of wounding myself with my own ambition. Like when I decide I can finish all my work for the following week in a single Saturday. Or when I decide my body can in fact run six miles after spending four months doing nothing but sitting in a classroom. Or when I decide my stomach can indeed hold three chocolate chip waffles the size of dinner plates. Or that time I decided I could edit six gigs of photos and videos and compose them into eloquently written blog posts while packing all of my earthly belongings into boxes and suitcases, serving up tacos til close every night of the week, saying good bye to all of my favorites, moving across the state to a new house, and attending orientation at a brand new school. I was obtusely surprised by the difficulty of this task.

But now find myself all moved in and oriented and excited to slather you in Southwestern joy. I promise it won’t be as gross as my verb choice makes it sound (I realize I have full editing control. But sometimes the word your hands blurt out is too silly to take back.).

Are you ready?

A lot of people like to travel. More people like to say they like to travel. Some people love to travel. And a handful of people are obsessed with being on the move.

I thought I liked to travel. Then I did it a bit and realized I loved it. Then I did it a lot and now I’m one of those obsessed people.

I was forced to admit that my infatuation had become extreme when I found myself searching for plane tickets at least once a week. To where? Anywhere. Literally anywhere. In the “from” field in the Sky Scanner search engine I’d put my current city and set the destination to “everywhere” (the inclusion of this option enables the continuation of my preoccupation and is also the best thing in the entire world).

In my free time, I plan trips I never take. You know, because I’m a student and when I’m not a student I’m a waitress and it takes the sale of many fajitas to add up to a plane ticket. But every once in a while, the stars align (read: my bank account is full, I don’t have class, and my shoes are on) and off I go.

Which is what happened in June and led to me flying to Phoenix, Arizona in August.

Phoenix was, until recently, the home of my very best friend, Bee. We met in our sophomore year of college, lived together in the fall of our junior year, went to Denmark that spring, lugged a 50-pound suitcase named Andy through Spain and Italy that April, and spent our senior year basking in the other’s glory. I think she’s the greatest. Also, I’d never seen a saguaro. So a trip to Arizona just made sense.

Since I spent a week there and now have an absolutely ridiculous number of pictures and tried my hand at making a short film of our adventures, I’m splitting the trip up into a few posts. Welcome to the first installment: our excursion to Sedona.

I got into Phoenix on Sunday afternoon and next morning, we hit the road to Northern Arizona. We drove through miles of beautiful desert, stopped off at Montezuma Well, met a wonderful old man named Norm who tried to convince me a rattlesnake statue was real, saw all kinds of red rocks, hiked through the wilderness, stood at the edge of one of the largest sinkholes in North America, walked over Devil’s Bridge, slid down a 50-foot natural water slide, and made more than our fair share of tiny lizard-friends. It was glorious. See for yourself.

Up next: the Grand Canyon. Get pumped.

Happy Friday.