Driving toward the Arizona border is bittersweet. I love New Mexico! I love the vibrant culture, the colors, the city. Even this morning as I wait for my starbucks, I am enthralled by the crisp morning. It’s chillier here and I’m weird and like it because I like cold weather. So Santa Fe - you are awesome, but I have to go! There is more to see and do. Arizona is calling me. Driving, the scenery never gets old. Over every hill, another mouth-dropping scene unfolds for us to marvel at. The mountains have a red hue which blends beautifully into the sandy landscape. I want to drink in the atmosphere, but it almost seems to big. Almost as if it weren’t real. I keep wondering to myself if I am dreaming if I am really in reality. Maybe it’s too much Inception in my mind. I remark to Katelin that I feel like I’m dreaming, and she offers to kill me to find out if I am or not. What are friends for, right?
We cross the Arizona border and we run around and jump up and down a few times like giddy schoolgirls. We’re in Arizona! We’re in Arizona!
We continue onward toward the Petrified National Forest and Painted Desert. We hit the desert first and I’m overwhelmed by the colors. I feel like God dumped a bucket of pastel paints across the plain and just let it ooze and ooze down and over the hills. The colors range from black to deep purple to violet to pink to rose, and they stretch on and on and on. Again, the feeling of a dream comes up to haunt me again. This place just cannot be real. I feel like my eye sockets need to be ripped out and expanded because they aren’t big enough to take in the scenery. It’s overwhelming. I cannot say enough how overwhelming this place is.
Oh by the way, it’s monsoon season here in the Southwest. Yeah, I didn’t know that before we left. So we keep getting bombarded with sporadic torrential downpours. The rain will pour like the dickens for 5 minutes and then go away. Then ten minutes later, downpour. Ten minutes later, downpour! Driving through this soooooo much fun! I mean it’s Noah in the flood all over again. Maybe the oversized eyes are crying.
We drive to Flagstaff which takes me by complete surprise. We’re in a forest...in Arizona! If someone dropped me out of plane and said, “Guess where we are!” I would never in a billion years guess Arizona. It looks like a forest. It smells like a forest. It feels like a forest. The architecture is all wooden and mountain cottage-styled. What happened to desert and cactus???
We have soup and sandwiches at the Wildflower, and then head downtown to get coffee at Macy’s. The coffee is fabulous. It’s old Europe meets hippie. I order a mocha and I get fresh homemade unsweetened whip cream on the top. The barista “paints” me an adorable painting on the top and wishes me on my way. We’re headed to Phoenix and we are all more than ready for a few rest days at the spa in Scottsdale. Driving down 17 south, I take in the most beautiful drive I have ever driven. We are winding through the mountains toward the desert. Cactus begin popping up, and its a wild mix of desert and mountains and I have never seen such beauty in all my life. We arrive at the FireSky Resort and Spa and it’s complete with a fake beach and cabanas. Yes, it’s time for a swim because I have no idea what tomorrow will bring
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