I can hardly believe that forty + years have flown by since I first set foot in Northern Arizona in 1976. My husband Spencer and I were driving west along Route 66 from Texas. He drove a tiny U-Haul truck and I drove my pumpkin orange VW Beetle toward our new home in San Diego.
Only fleeting memories remain of car trouble in Flagstaff, a dodgy emergency brake on the U-Haul, and communicating with each other via CB radios in the vast emptiness of the American West. Flagstaff was an outpost town back then, as was Sedona. And still carries that same charm today, the crowds add a new dimension to the modern experience. I remember the hairpin turns on the descent into Oak Creek Canyon, but the three-point + hairpin turns in Jerome made me doubt the wisdom of this trek West! And yet, I still hold dear a pair of Navajo silver/turquoise earrings that Spencer bought me. Three years later, he would buy me a matching cuff bracelet while we were living in Tuba City during our six-week tour with the National Health Service. Little did I know then that I would return many times to Northern Arizona, seeking a deep connection to the land and sky, to the spirit of the red rocks, and to many adventures!
So, in 2018 and some forty years later, I still look to those same red rocks of Sunset Crater, Wupatki, and Sedona when I need to hear the land and sky speak. I still return to the San Francisco Peaks and Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness for solitude and restoration of body and soul.
Here begins the first of many (I hope!) posts on life among the red rocks.
L.S. Berthelsen 