Sedona is a beautiful place. It is set in a unique landscape of towering red rock buttes, and because it contains no tall buildings, you can see the view from practically anywhere in town. It is also a spiritual place. Something about Sedona, perhaps the beautiful surroundings, seems to have drawn to it an exceptionally large population of healers, artists and spiritual guides. There are even several vortex meditation sites (whatever that means) nearby.
But perhaps because it is already spring break for a lot of students, the city has been so crowded these past several days that I felt like the city is a victim of its own success. There is one main road through town, and it got so congested several times that we ended up changing our plans so we wouldn’t need to stand in traffic for an hour just to go 2 miles. Several hikes that we did try to do were so popular that there was nowhere to park, and we had to choose a different spot. And some of the overlooks the city is so known for were full of people, which kind of defeats the purpose of enjoying nature in solitude and quiet. It is of course good that a lot of people are going outdoors and enjoying hiking, but the infrastructure is just not even close to being able to handle all those people. I hope the city realizes this quickly and takes action.
Orit pointed out another interesting thing about the city, aside from the natural beauty of its surroundings. The entrance to it as well as its central streets lack the usual functional but ugly aspects that are so common in other cities around the US. There are no car-washes, auto shops, self storage facilities, salvage yards and the like. Most of what you see are open businesses in aesthetically pleasing buildings, though to be fair, it is still in many ways a typical American town - its main street is a classic stroad, for example. But it does feel like there is a bit more oversight and organization at the city level, and like there is some control over capitalist interests. I think it looks and feels nice, and I wish more cities would do that.
We stayed here for a few days in a nice Airbnb. We are starting to get into the groove of the trip (we’ve been almost 10 days on the road), and allowed ourselves sometime to read, write and relax. We still managed to do several nice hikes today and yesterday.
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