Tag: Oak Creek Canyon

Apple Trees at Oak Creek Canyon

Apple Trees of Oak Creek Canyon

Oak Creek Canyon comes as a delightful surprise, and one needs to stop to look.  The drive to Sedona from Flagstaff, Arizona, is along a curvy road, one undergoing serious reconstruction when we drove it (bump, bump, bump!).  There are numerous turn-offs for hiking and viewing along the way, but we chose to stop at the Oak Creek Canyon Park to hike.

Originally, a pioneer family settled in, raising food for itself, such as chickens and apples.  The apple orchard is still there, as are remains of the rather fancy chicken coop (see a later photo) built of the native red stone.  In the 1920s it became a resort, evolving from a homestead to a place for the rich and famous.

Now it is an area to be enjoyed by the rich and poor alike, along with tourists and other such riff-raff.  Definitely a beautiful spot!  Bring a picnic and spend a day – plenty to see and do and enjoy.  It was one of my favorite places on our road trip.

A Stop Along the Way

We are actually in the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Teton National Park.  Today will be the first day out – we had a long drive from Laramie.  Without a laptop, much less good internet connections in the Wild West, it’s been difficult to edit pictures or make an entry to a blog here or there.

I’ve been using Polarr editing software with my Chrome Book, and I have rather mixed feelings about it but that is just because I am not sure how things look in the final edit.  Still, it is an easy-to-use editor, and given that, I am not going to complain.  I just need to master it, and when home, compare the images I see on the screen of the Chrome Book to my 27″ monitors at home.

We have really been enjoying the trip!  We started out in California, and the first stop was in Flagstaff, Arizona.  I really like Flag – as we are known to call it – and we stayed at a wonderful B&B.  Knowledgeable hosts are one of the draws of a good B&B, along with great breakfasts.  We had both.  We were in Flagstaff for two full days, taking in Shoshone Point in the Grand Canyon, and a drive through Oak Creek Canyon to see Sedona.  The Grand Canyon is truly grand, and unfathomable, so to speak, until you are on the edge, looking down and across from the rim.  Sedona is a tourist town surrounded by incredible red rocks, buttes, mesas and cliffs.  To get there, one drives through a lovely canyon, and it is worthwhile to stop at Oak Canyon to wander through it.

Oak Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow canyon, complete with creek, old buildings, and a former apple orchard put in by some of the original families who settled there.  It was my favorite part of the day out to Sedona, other than fantastic food at a restaurant – Mariposa – which has 360 degree views of the rocks surrounding Sedona.  The canyon is surrounded by red cliffs and traversed by a winding road.  The drive is one to take slowly, stopping, hiking, gawking.  It’s a wonderful corner of the world to see.