What's In a Name? (Days 2 -4)

We left the Arizona desert floor at 113 degrees on Monday and drove up to Munds Park, climbing up to 7,000 feet elevation and dropping 30 degrees along the way, thankfully. We went from desert cactus to rolling lands covered with tufts of coarse grass and occasional scrub brush to an area filled with juniper trees and on up to the piney woods.

As we've traveled the last couple of days, Neil and I have been fascinated by the interesting names we've seen along the way: Big Bug Creek, Skunk Canyon, Bloody Basin (oh, joy!), Dead Horse Park (is that where you go to park your dead horses?), Crazy Creek, and our very favorite: Damned if I Know Canyon. (See picture on left.)

Much as we love the desert, we have to admit that we loved the mountains of Northern Arizona and the red rocks of the Sedona area much more! (See picture below: the center formation is called "Mother and Child".) It was awesome, and to add to the joy, these rain-deprived Southern Californians got to experience thunder, lightening, and rain.


Our wonderful hosts, Bill & Louise Searcy, took us on quite an adventure enroute to Sedona on Tuesday morning. It was a shortcut, actually, called Schnebly Hill, rather infamous in that area. Taking an hour to navigate, this special road was only twelve miles long. It is a single lane dirt road (so letting the few other vehicles crazy enough to try it pass by necessitates finding a wide spot in the road), has no guard rail, and is covered with a combination of rocks and potholes that reminded us of some of the backroads in the Punta Chame area of Panama experienced on a trip way back in 1983.

As Bill navigated Schnebly Hill, Neil was in the front passenger seat, and I was right behind him -- on the "drop off" side of the vehicle. Driving along, our host and tour guide, Bill, casually mentioned, "Yep, there have been lots of terrible accidents on this road!" As I peered over the edge -- remember: no guard rail! -- where the drop off was literally hundreds of feet down rocky slopes to the bottom, I asked if he could tell us about those accidents at lunch, when we were down in the land of solid ground and smooth roads again. My advice? Beware of shortcuts!

Father Frey's favorite find? Two monks to add to his monk collection which he found at the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona that overlooks an amazing array of red rock formations. He was a happy guy!

Tonight, we're with friends, Pat & Dave Armstrong, in Elephant Butte, NM. Why is it named Elehant Butte? Because there actually is a butte that looks like an elephant in the middle of the lake formed by the nearby dam on the Rio Grande River, of course! And you thought I was going to say, "______ if I Know!"