C as in...

...Calcite, Cacti, Canyons, Coyotes, Castles in the Air, and Childhood Memories.

I started to put together my 'D' entry for the ABC-Along and realized that, though I'd thought a lot about what I'd do, I never actually posted my 'C' entry. In the spirit of following the few rules that Vicki suggested, I'll do it before I do 'D.'

Earlier this month we took a trip to Arizona. We started in Tucson, where I was born but where I haven't been since. While there we shopped the ginormous Gem and Mineral show where we bought quite a few specimens and fossils, including this Calcite-filled fossilized whelk.

We also spent a couple of days in Sedona, arriving just as the snow melted off the roads and you could get there again.

I lived in Sedona as a small child between 1957 and '61. I wanted to show my husband why I have such vivid memories of the place. It's changed a lot since I could cross the main road to my Dad's gas station, the only one in town, all by myself at age five. But as soon as we drove into the red hill area, I felt I'd Come Home.

We saw Cacti in the snow, reminding me of the time my father carried me to the bus stop on his shoulders because of the snow and then I had to walk home on my own since school was canceled. Sedona lies at 4500 feet and counts as High Dessert where you have real seasons.

We saw vistas of Canyons much too big to fit in a photograph and with much too vivid a contrast of red rock and blue sky for little automatic cameras to believe those colors were right, so everything came out toned down.

We saw Coyotes who seemed completely unfazed by our presence (we were in a car.)

The Creek-side backyard of one of the places I lived lay just across from our hotel.

We could see Coffeepot Rock, a favorite of my mother's, from that house - actually more a shack.

On the way to Sedona we stopped at one of my favorite spots, Montezuma's Castle. Neither a true castle nor at all related to Montezuma, it always seemed like a Castle in the Air to me.

Though the town has grown badly now that paved roads get you there, the landscape really is everything you've ever heard about it. Go there if you can. Then imagine it with one gas station, one coffee shop, and a small, impressionable girl who learned there to love nature in all it's forms and mysteries we can't explain.

Comments

[margene]

You must have been stunned by the changes to Sedona! It is a beautiful spot but not as peaceful as when you lived there. So much of the West is 'loved too much'.

[ashpags]

Wow - those pictures are gorgeous! I'm glad that you got to go back 'home' and see how it's changed. =)

[Emily]

Such lovely pictures - thank you for sharing them!