To Everything, A Season

February 22nd – Holbrook, AZ to Sedona, AZ Return

This chapter of the blog is hard to contemplate, more difficult to write. Today has been a "been there, done that," a "once-in-a-lifetime," an "is this all there is" experience for your humble narrator.

It's 8:30 p.m. MST, and Mom has just joined Dad in bed. One light on above the table and my laptop. The sound of eighteen-wheelers rolling up and down I40. The plaintive wail of trains lugging container cars east and west. A woman coughing in the next room. Tears threatening. Could it have been better for them? Was it good enough? God knows. Nothing to do about it now.

It's time to take them home, I know that. But I wish I could have shown them more, let them see some of my U.S. places. So little time, because I began so late. The irrevocable truth is that I have done what I have done – not what I wish I had done – to honour my parents.

Tomorrow morning we make for the frigid north and home, where we will have to wait many weeks before we experience the +21º C. of Sedona this afternoon. How many more opportunities will we be able to make in order to share this kind of time together?

But I'm way ahead of myself: I haven't yet sketched the events of our day to, in and from Sedona.

My Dad has been to Sedona twice before; once with Mom, and with a baseball team another. Their trip together was in 1975, with Mr. & Mrs. George Enns. Both times, Dad visited the Chapel on the Hill, a tourist destination Ruth and I did not reach on our visit back in November '08. This particular site seems to have been Dad's Holy Grail for this portion of the trip, and all else Sedonan seemed insignificant.

We arrived in Sedona via the Oak Creek Canyon Road from Flagstaff around 11:30, having all slept in. Over breakfast in Holbrook's Super 8 Motel, we had exchanged pleasantries with a couple headed to Phoenix to see their son, and a tall rancher type from east of Albuquerque. The couple lives in South Dakota halfway between Sioux Falls, SD and Sioux City, IA, "nine miles off the interstate, and close enough to IA to have an IA address." They, of course, were eager to exchange cold weather/winter stories with us. Our departure was considerably later than we had anticipated it would be in our plan-making the previous evening.

I insisted that our first stop be the Wildflower Bakery in Sedona. We ordered three soup and 1/2 sandwich lunch specials – Southwestern Veggie Roasted Corn Soup and a chicken salad sandwich – and three coffees. Praise all 'round.

The Outlook Mesa at the Sedona Airport was next, followed by a quick shopping trip at Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village on the banks of Oak Creek. Surprise prevents any discussion of the few items purchased, other than for the turquoise pendant Mom bought for herself as a memento of this trip.

Next came the short pilgrimage to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This unusual Catholic church was completed in 1956, and was the vision and gift of Marguerite Bruswig Staude to the Diocese of Phoenix and St John Vianney. Dad was happy to linger up here for quite some time, this place having obviously provided an important inspiration to him on his previous visits. Mom emerged from the gift shop, delightedly showing off a Chapel creche Christmas tree ornament Dad had bought for her.

Dad, however, was visibly tired. We had discussed the remaining itinerary over lunch, and he expressed the wish to head home. We toured a few of the easily accessible landmarks – Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock and Courthouse Rock. We drove further south on #179, through Oak Creek village, and on toward the I17 on-ramp. Soon after, we were back at the registration desk of the Super 8 Motel.

That's it. Not quite, of course. There are still 1,836 miles to traverse and, perhaps, a few more memories to create.

Over and out.