Food, Fitness, & Fun in All 50 States

Skyler had to work most of the time my mom was visiting us in Phoenix, so I took her around to do some site-seeing while he was at work. For her first full day there we took a trip to Sedona and repeated much of the trip that Skyler and I had taken there a few weeks prior. We started the day off at Montezuma Castle again. When she saw my pictures on Facebook from there she really wanted to go. For my post with more details about this Sinagua dwelling click here.

Grinding Stone

While we were there we got to talking to one of the rangers and I had told him what our plans were for the day and he gave me what he felt like was a better plan…so we gave it a try and took a different route than what Skyler and I had. So for our next stop we went into Sedona looking for lunch. We tried the Cowboy Club but nothing on their menu looked good and it was all over-priced so instead we just ordered some Cactus Fries to hold us over. That wasn’t the best idea ever though because they were gross. Apparently we are not fans of cactus. It was extremely mushy and just no bueno.

Well, the ranger had actually told us to stop a little before we got to Sedona at the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village for some fun shopping and good food. We had missed it somehow along the way so after our quick stop in Sedona we turned back around and tried again and sure enough found this cute little village. It was so much fun! We were still pretty hungry since we didn’t eat much of the cacti so we stopped first at El Rincon for some Arizona Style Mexican food. Yummmy! This place was very tasty and had a cute little patio we got to enjoy. Mom ordered the Taco Salad and I had a Chimichanga and they were both delicious! Service was great too – which is always a bonus.

Once we both had full tummies it was time to do some shopping. It was a super cute village with lots of fun boutique and artsy type stores. The perfect kind of shopping/browsing for a leisurely afternoon enjoying the nice weather with your mom.

Cool Tree Growing Up a Stairwell

Cool Staircase

Once we had piddled around for a bit we headed on to the airport view of Sedona. It is a stunning view of the brilliant red rock…a definite must see!

Our final stop of the day on our way back to Phoenix was at Tuzigoot. It is another Sinagua dwelling but one that you are allowed to actually walk up in which is super neat. To read more about it check out my post from when Sky and I visited here.

As a random side note…on our way to Tuzigoot we noticed several cop cars with their lights flashing on the opposite side of the road where we had just come from. Both of us mentioned that something major must have happened for so many of them to be over in one spot with no signs of a wreck. Well, a little bit later in the afternoon we heard on the radio that a couple had been found in their car murdered at one of the scenic overlooks. SO FREAKY! Because we had been stopping at several of these overlooks all day to take pictures. I followed the story the next few days and come to find out a guy just went crazy pretty much and just shot and killed a couple of tourists and then later a police officer…insane…and scary!

Other than the freaky news, it was an awesome day of site-seeing with my mom. We managed to cram a lot of stops into one day and still made it back to Phoenix in time to pick Skyler up from work…success!