This morning we wondered around the timeshare property trying to find the swimming pool and the creek. We found the creek easily, but had a hard time finding the pool for some reason. After a couple of trips around the loop we finally stumbled on the pool area. It was an indoor / outdoor pool with hot tubs inside and out. You could swim through a tunnel of sorts to go from one to the other and back. I don't know if it was the pools or the combination of the pools and the setting in the red rocks that made it so neat. Needless to say, we spent many, many hours there over the next few days.
Around 11am we left Sedona and headed to Clarksdale, Arizona for a scheduled train ride at 1pm. The train ride is called the Verde Canyon railroad and takes about 4 hours to complete. The train leaves from the depot in Clarksdale and travels up the Verde Canyon alongside the Verde River. The train has inside and outside cars and we could switch between them whenever. It was a really neat experience to ride the train up this canyon with a beautiful river in the foreground and big, high desert mountains in the background. The girls loved it. They spent a lot of time on the outside car b/c they could see better than inside. -- Sidebar: July and August are the monsoon season in Arizona. The humidity goes up (from 5% to 30 - 40%) and it storms most every afternoon. The storms are big, sometimes violent, and often have lots of lightning associated with them. -- So, when the train stopped in Perkinsville to move the engine for the trip back, we were treated to one of these awesome storms on the return trip. There was lots of lightning in the distance with dark blue clouds that made for some great views of contrasting colors. -- Sidebar: Perkinsville is a small, small community that use to be a single ranch a hundred or so years ago, just a small ranch, 20 miles wide and 30 miles long. As I understood the story, the wife sold the ranch for $1,800 using a quick claim deed while her husband was away gambling and so on. He came home to nothing, she bought a horse and a rifle and then left town.
After the train ride we went to the Blazin M Ranch for a cowboy dinner / dinner show. This was pretty neat and had the setting of a old west town, though sort of 'campy' if I may use that word, hopefully in the correct way. The dinner was good and show was a blend of humor, western swing / ballad-style music and some poetry - Rindercella. Have you ever heard this? The leader of the band recited this poem in its entirety, from memory. Read it to your family, it is funny.
This was a busy day and we were worn out, but it was what mom wanted to do and it was one of her 'retirement' trips. More tomorrow.Rodney
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