#383 Oct 3 Red Rocks State Park, site host, Sedona, Arizona

About a year ago, India and I were talking about what to do next. I remember about 10 years ago talking to a guy and he said well I guess we could go back up to Sedona. I said what’s Sedona? He said it’s just a really pretty place and that kind of stuck with me. I decided to look into it and find out what it's about. The images were amazing. One of the best ways to what’s enjoy a new place is to find a camp host job. We applied to Arizona state parks and put down as our preference, Sedona, and we got the job. Now we are at Red Rocks State Park. It will be a free place to stay with a full hook-up and propane. We left Camp Verde and headed up the hill to Sedona 20 minutes away.

We had called ahead and they were waiting on us there it was a little tight because between the guardhouse and all the little barriers of concrete and such we're kind of a big rig so I had to wonder had we made the right choice to go to the right side of the guardhouse so we barely squeaked through by an inch. The park ranger had met us at where we would be parking the RV and helped us get it backed in properly. Everyone was very friendly and we got the electricity and water hooked up I was kind of pleased to hear that they also provided propane. He said we didn't need to really do anything and just relax but later on maybe in 2 hours could we meet and he wanted to give us hosting pamphlets and things to read and uniforms and the key to the gate. He showed me how to unlock the gate and how to let ourselves in and out after dark and with that we agreed just to meet on Monday morning for our first training session.

We work three days, mtw, then we have four days off. India works in the gift shop answering questions and running the register and stocking shelves.

I work at the point of entry selling day passes and answering questions for half of the day. The other half they had me go to the maintenance shop and fix things which is what I really prefer. The question I get the most is do you honor my federal national parks pass at this state park. I say, no this state park is a state park. Then they see the sign that says no pets or swimming allowed; Can I swim here with my dog? I say no that’s not allowed. It's fine it’s just that I say this 150 times a day.

Here we are for three months from October till January 1st. I always like to put pictures of what it's like where we live and so here's one, I'll call my new backyard.

It was taken standing on a bluff three to four hundred feet above where the RV is parked. It's called Eagles Nest it's the tallest peak in the state park and it’s a bit of a hike. It wasn't too hard the first time we did it but we only took 16 oz of water and it was a 90-degree day. The water ran out just about the time we were on our descent. By the time I got down the flat ground I was seeing images of oasis and they were all mirages.

Berts incarceration

I suppose I would have to say the only real negative happened about the second day we were there the ranger came over and said I noticed your cat was out and about last night and that's not okay. I said I thought we had mentioned that we have a cat and it was okay and he said yes it is okay but pets have to be on a leash or they have to be kept indoors they can't run wild. Bert has never really known anything but running wild. The next day we kept Bert in all day long but I figured how could it hurt for him to be out during the darkest part of the night. The next morning the park ranger came over and said hey your cat was out during the middle of the night. I thought we talked about that I don't want this to become a big issue you know you do have to comply with the rules if you want to host here. He seemed a little hurt that after telling us no we did it anyway. From then on we knew that we had to not disobey any further.

Bert did not like being inside24 hours a day at all and I thought I would spend some of my time trying to create a habitat for him under the RV. I went to Home Depot and I was going to buy some chicken wire but I thought that to make a nice enclosure I needed maybe 50 ft or so and it seemed a little pricey at the time so I saw some orange event fencing material which was half the price and seemed like it would do the job. I made a pretty elaborate home underneath the RV and it took about a whole day and it's not that comfortable under there. I enclosed the area under the RV and created a kind of cat house under there. I cut a hole in the flooring belly pan under the RV that would have access to what we call the dungeon. This is where Bert goes to hang out in the infrastructure of the RV where all the plumbing and electrical are routed. I pulled down a section and made a ramp out of it and carpeted it so he wouldn't slip. This is how he would go from inside the RV to the little cat cage underneath for the next 3 months. I assumed the second he saw he would be thrilled but it was very difficult to convince him that he should go under there. After some time went by coaxing him, a week later and he started to venture under there. I don't know why he was either so afraid or so intimidated about it but eventually, he would go under there and peer out at the freedom he had known once. Several days later I looked and Bert was out in the yard, an Escapee. I couldn't figure out how but he had shredded the orange plastic material so I had to redo it again this time in real chicken wire. I didn't save a bit of money there but I knew he couldn't cut through chicken wire and that was the solution all right. It was just another half day of work for me so thanks, Bert.

During our time at Red Rocks this would be the only thing that was a black cloud because if Bert ain't happy, nobody's happy. He would constantly beg to go out we had to constantly say no. Eventually, we all got used to it but I tried to imagine what Bert was thinking. He's basically incarcerated but he doesn't know what his crime was and there's really no way to just help him understand. This was just disturbing enough to us that we decided if we took another hush job we would make sure we ask the Bert question the right way to make sure the cat could wander a little.

We settled into our new job and mine was to operate the main entrance where people came in and bought passes to enter the park. I would do that for about half the time and work in maintenance for the other half. India’s job was to work in the gift shop and museum on the register and answer questions.

That went smoothly enough but just like anything, there was a couple of personality clashes. We always kind of just talked about it and I told her not to let it bother her too much. We're here just for a moment and they're here for 5 or 10 years. If they want it vacuumed a certain dumb way let's not get too excited about it. We found to be at work at 8:00 we would get up pretty early at 5:30 or so to just have an hour or so of not being in a hurry. That required us to go to bed around 9:30 so we were acting pretty old. We worked for 3 days a week but then we had four days off and we could sleep in and do whatever we wanted to. Every other day we would hike for 2 miles and Red Rocks certainly has wonderful trails. We also ventured out and did other trails. I enjoyed taking lots of pictures of the rock formations and the beauty of the area. As October passed November became fairly cold and many times it would be 20° overnight and we didn't love that part. It would warm up pretty good during the day but it was winter and yeah I don't love winter. It wasn't that bad because it didn't stay very cold for long periods. I was also surprised that here that after a brief springtime it would be quite hot there, 100 and 110, so I'm sure the staff liked it being cool.

Even though we were enduring covid conditions we were able to locate some recovery meetings. I went pretty regularly on Wednesday night at a meeting down in Sedona. We both enjoy going to another type of self-help group called CODA and we became really good friends with those folks.

This is Miss Sedona our founder

We noticed the behavior that we were doing which is just crazy. We were about the only people that were masking and we would walk in with masks and then kind of stay socially distant from everybody. On closing, they would say sort of a closing prayer or something and we will be masked up then we would unmask as we walked out the door. Someone would say can we get a hug and out of peer pressure we would hug everybody. We used to ask ourselves why were we so diligent the do that pretty dumb thing? No good answer to risky behavior I’m just glad we didn’t get infected.

We had nice meals out in Sedona but everything seemed to be 18 minimum. On our first night, we went to an upscale pizza place. There was a line of 20 people but not to get on a list. This line was for everything. They wouldn’t take your name and put you on a list you just had to wait to even ask a question. This one line was also used to place a to-go order or pick up a to-go order. It was the worse system I ever experienced. After a few minutes I decided, I didn’t want to participate in what they were selling. It would be like rewarding them with our money for treating us horribly. We ended up going to a weird little place. On the internet, they come up as a restaurant but they were a bar with some tables and a grill. No one was making it because that’s so stupid. We sat in a dark corner alone as we were the only people having solid calories. We ordered fried seafood or something and it was good but not memorable.

Later in October, we found a nice Italian place with an early bird a few miles away. We ended up having most sit-down meals in Cottonwood which was 20 minutes down the hill in a more built-up area and more affordable. We went out to eat a bit more often because we were living there for free.

Hiking the trails is a great way to get to know the area and we hike quite a bit. About a week after we arrived we were coming back one evening and there is a 1/8 of a mile stretch your road from the gate to main entry. As I was coming around the corner one night we saw several javelina crossing and that was interesting.

One evening we were coming down that road and I saw something that looked like a really big dog. It occurred to me that I was looking at a mountain lion and I only saw it for 3 to 5 seconds and then it kind of went into the canyon. I couldn't believe what I had seen as they are reasonably rare. I told the ranger the next day and he said that he had seen some tracks near the maintenance shop but he was a bit jealous that I had seen one in my first week when he had not seen one for 5 years. Well, it was a bit of a treat because it was a very majestic creature.

Here is an email that acts as a journal entry to family

I wanted to send some pictures from our hiking trip last Saturday. We went on a Red Rocks hike and I took them into the house of Apache fires. We went on down Apache then Coyote ridge and then down to Kisva. It was about 3 miles. Isabel was in tow the whole time and never complained but pointed at everything. Later we went to Famous Pizza in Sedona. They have outdoor seating but no heaters. It was about 50 degrees so we thought it was chilly. Amber is used to Flagstaff which is like 7500 feet so they are in the 5 to 20 degrees overnight temperatures. Fifty degrees probably seemed warm to her.

My sister asked so where is the water and I thought I would share more about that. When we're at the RV we can hear a creek babbling down behind the house. You can just barely see it if you hold your mouth right and look between the trees. In the evening when we have the windows open it's nice to hear the water going by. It's a nice background sound. It's called Oak Creek and it runs all through Red Rock State Park. It’s spring-fed and originates south of Flagstaff and flows down Oak Creek Canyon to us. There are plenty of places to play in the water like Slide Rock State Park and Red Rocks Crossing 3 miles away. Here at our state park, no one and or pets are allowed in the water. It's kind of like a pretty girl you can look but no touchy.

We have a herd of mule deer that come by almost every evening it's about ten or Twelve folks grazing and nibbling on the trees. They're around people so much they're kind of tame but not really. I think they instinctively know that humans are predators and that can go the wrong way so they keep their distance.

The other night I was coming back home about 7:30 p.m. and I noticed a skunk on the side of the road just walking along. I started riding beside him with the truck and he put up with it for a while. At some point, he decided he had had enough of the bright headlights and took a left up the hill. I've smelled them before but I've never seen one close like this one at about 5 feet. I was surprised that its tail was about as long as its body.

I drove on by and headed towards the house and just right there moseying down the road was a full-grown mountain lion. He or she looked at me like what? and then just took a left and kind of went up the hill. I told the ranger about it and they said they had not seen one for years and I've only been here for 3 weeks and how do I get to see one as a short-timer. I laugh because this gives me bragging rights. It was a little creepy because every other day we walk about 10 miles all through the hills and trails around here and she's around. I'm just kind of hoping she'll stay off to her little way and we'll still be off to ours. It was about the coolest thing I think I've ever seen.

So the video I have attached is Oak Creek down by the house

Baldwin Trail

We had heard about the Vortexes and all that so we decided to go try to find one of them. There are several down by Cathedral Rock and to get near you would go to a place called Baldwin Trail. We started this process by arriving at the parking lot at maybe 3 in the afternoon we went to Cathedral Rock and it was very pretty we caught some nice pictures there. We walked back a little bit and then we saw a sign that said to Baldwin Trail this way. We didn't have any map downloaded and we weren't positive what we're getting into but I thought it was a 2 .5 mile Loop.

We walked and walked and don't give me wrong it was very pretty. There were good trail markers along the way but it did seem to be a bit of a chore at some point halfway through. We knew if we kept on plugging along at some point it did a big lazy loop back to the parking lot where we came from. We saw a lady about halfway through and we just asked how are we doing? We wanted to be sure we were on the right trail. She said yeah you're doing fine but just be aware that there's only about 45 minutes left of daylight and you got a pretty good trek to go, you're only about halfway. You got another mile or so and so we thought okay, well, gee wiz.

I remember saying things to India like don't let your nerve get the best of you we're gonna be fine. It does look like you'll get dusk soon but we're gonna be fine. Don't let it get to you. I was trying to give comfort so she didn't worry. I had always thought we would get back to the main road by dark but I was wrong. As you might can imagine all this is fun in the daytime even at twilight but when it starts getting dark it is pretty hard to stay on the trail or even see the trail. One thing that helped a lot was we knew approximately where we were and we could see a road down below us. There was a 45-degree cliff between it and us but still a comfort. Every once in a while we could see a car go by so I kind of knew where we were but that doesn't make it easy to get there.

We got to a point where the same lady with two little dogs decided to double back and see how you guys were doing. I said, well thank you because we are getting a little spooked about how to stay on the right trail. She said I'm a nurse and I don't want more patients so I thought I better come back and check on you guys. She led us down a path that in her opinion was the easier way to get to the main road. Not as direct but easier but more steps. When we got to the dirt road and she said you'll be fine now just go right down there and you'll see your car at the parking lot not too down. We thanked her plenty and she went on home. We walked and walked and now we're safe everything's great as we're on a real dirt road but I got to tell you we had another mile to go and we'd already done about three so we were a bit tired. A little further down the road and somebody drove by and said are you okay? We said I have to say we are technically okay but we are wiped out if you want to know the truth. They say well you got about another half mile or so but if you want to give us a ride we will. We said that would be nice so they did and we landed at our parking lot. They said oddly they had already rescued somebody from one of the real treacherous trails up at Cathedral. Somebody had climbed way up there and got frozen or spooked and couldn't seem to move. Since so they had already done one rescue today they were considering this the easy rescue.

We got to the truck we were relieved breathing nothing really bad happened to accept we both got a few gray extra gray hairs. We kind of swore in the future we would make sure we had the map or a map downloaded on the phone and a flashlight. We would know what we were getting into and start early enough in the day to where nothing bad/ dark would happen. I want to point out that the weather was fine so I wouldn’t suggest it but even if we had stayed out all night it was like a perfect temperature. That doesn't make it a good idea or anything you would want to repeat.

That was our Baldwin experience. To make lemonade out of lemons I did get some really pretty pictures.

I saw an area that really looked like an altar to some kind of God but I don't know what it's called. On our second Baldwin hike, we finished much earlier. On the way out we got some gorgeous sunset pictures.

When we started our hike we went down a dirt road and took a right at Oak Creek. I saw the strangest thing. I knew that they said the Vortexes were here but we saw some ladies pacing in ways that seem very intentional. They would walk about maybe 25 steps and then turn around and walk 25 steps and they seem to be doing a chant. It occurred to me that they were drinking up the energy of the vortex they had found. I assume vortexes are probably real but I don't think it's magical. I would imagine knowing nothing about the history of them that somebody was walking around one day with a compass and they came across a field of energy somehow that made the compass just spin all directions. That's what made it a Vortex. I don't know but people are really jazzed up about it in the town of Sedona.

We met a young lady that we became friends while in Sedona and she suggested let's do the Sugar Loaf hike so we met her at her house which was near the trailhead.

After a while, we found ourselves in what seemed like a really big wash that looked like a dry lake bed but it had walls built all around it. She said that when the rain comes it really comes and it'll come gushing down and fill that whole dry lake up. The city decided to trap it and slow it down so it didn't just fly down the hill. I thought that was pretty cool because it was very dry at this point during the year and hard to imagine. Our friend had to cut it short but we obviously finished the hike up ourselves. We walked past all kinds of really cool hidden figures and I took as many pictures as I could. This is where I see people's faces in the rocks that others might not notice. We got up to what appeared to be the summit trail.

We left the easy trail and it just started kind of doing switchbacks going what seems like straight up the hill. Well after a lot of effort we finally got to the top. It was probably a 200-foot rise from where we were and we were so tired but you can see the whole town and that's the reward. There was a nice breeze up there and really pretty. We were so tired by the time we got back to the truck we were glad to be done.

Another trail we did was called The Pyramid Mountain Trail.

It was not so far from Red Rocks State Park and near the intersection of Red Rock Loop Road and Chavez. It looked to be reasonably easy on Alltrails. We got started and it said to go in a little bit and fork left or right to hike a large loop. We went to the right and we're going to come back on the left. We went for quite a ways I say 3/4 to a mile and it wasn't real clear on where to turn left because if we had gone straight it looks like it went halfway to Georgia. We saw a guy on the trail and I said so is this the right way to get to the Pyramid Loop Road Trail. He said actually it's a whole lot to take on this time of day. If you kind of go straight up that hill and across the way and you'll get there and all but it's getting late in the day and it's not that well marked. Because we had learned our lesson at Baldwin we decided to turn back and go down the well-marked trail we had come from. It would be an easy trip back to the truck and we wouldn't have any adventures in near dark conditions anymore.

We came back on another day closer to noon so we wouldn't have any issues. We did the Pyramid Mountain trail and I told India when we were about halfway into it that it may have been marked easy or moderate but we decided it was extremely moderate at some point. It was so steep she felt like she had to get on her hands and knees in some parts. The trail had that lovely thing that looks forward to where you have about a foot and a half a trail and then about a 500-foot cliff straight down. That's not exactly her fun thing but I told her we were so far in it now we might as well just try to keep on going and hope it gets easier. It got a little better after a while we got to a place where the map we downloaded was saying that we were off trail but some markers hinted that we were on the trail. We were so frustrated that it was also inaccurate. We eventually decided to kind of just go down the hill because we could sort of see the trail we'd been on a week ago. There were no clear trail markers on how to get there so we just kind of went cross country and got there. They discouraged this because you're stepping on the ground that needs to be left alone. The markers are really inaccurate and we didn't want to get lost so we did that there thing. This was another one of those times where India looked at me like thanks for nothing. It was a really difficult trail but we also got some gorgeous pictures looking back down the valley so there's always a positive in there. We also got a really good workout all the same.

Bird Room

One of the jobs that I was really proud of that I did for the state park was switching over the fluorescent lights to LED direct wire bulbs. It was a pretty big job so it took me about a month but I had plenty of time.

I had done a dress rehearsal for this job down in Mississippi at the Emmett Till Museum so I knew how to do it. It's where you remove the ballast and make a bunch of connections to just put 120 volts on the left and the right of the LED bulbs. One day I walked into what's called the bird room. It's kind of a lecture room and also the break room where all the rangers and everyone have lunch. India and I would go back to the house and have an hour off.

I noticed ¾ of the lights didn't work properly and the ones that did work would flicker and hum and the whole room had a buzzing sound. This is what it's like when fluorescent tubes aren't working very well. It was annoying to hear the buzzing all the time and the light it's were horrible so I suggested to the manager of the park, Heidi that if she would just let me guide her on this we would get the direct wire LED bulbs and do a remodel. She liked the idea so we ordered 80 bulbs and I did all the lights in the bird room and both bathrooms and the 3 rangers offices. It was a lot but I had plenty of time.

It was the kind of project that when you're done you're proud of because now it's all extremely well lit there's no hesitation when you touch this switch it's immediately bright, completely silent, uses 1/10 of the energy and it's just a good feeling to know you left the place much better than you found it.

I had once heard the ranger once tell a visitor if you can't find a place to camp you can always go down to forest road 525. It was off the main road going from Sedona to Cottonwood on the right-hand side. It was just a forest road where they allow boondocking. and we always thought that we might stay there for a few nights on the way out of town. I was talking to somebody and they said yeah they've had some problems on there you know robberies and just people that will not leave. There's a 14-day limit but people stay way too long so it becomes kind of a squatters camp. One afternoon we rode down there and just did a ride through to see what we would think. The road was really bumpy and I mean it would have just beat our rig to death. There was just a lot of creepy homelessness feel to the place. I'm being judgy but it just didn't feel like a place I would want to hang out for very long. We tried the second entrance and it was either the same or worse and it sure was a mighty bumpy road. It about beat our truck to death so by the time we did this little excursion we said no 525 for us thank you very much.

When we first considered Sedona someone had said all I can tell you it's very beautiful and I can tell you from the beginning to the end it really was. The red rock formations are wonderful and every time we came down the hill we would see Thunder mountain it would just take your breath away. It's about a 6 to 8,000-foot rock formation to just jumps out at you and you go down the hill towards town.

Everything about the place was wonderful.