After our big hike at the Grand Canyon, we spent the rest of the day working our way to Sedona.  We traveled east out of Grand Canyon National Park along AZ-64 and then south along US-89.  When we reached Flagstaff, we stopped for dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery.  We had excellent meals and beers at this brew pub and continued on our way down to Sedona via AZ-89A.  At this point, it was already getting dark out.  I wish we could have seen more of the scenery in the Oak Creek Canyon, as I’m sure it’s a very pretty drive.  We finally made it to Sedona, checked into the Sedona Real Inn, and called it a night.

The next set of pictures comes from the following day, our third day in Arizona.  We started off the day by driving down to the Montezuma Castle National Monument.  This is one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America, built by the Sinagua Indians around 700AD.  Part of the ruins was built deep inside a cave, and therefore it was protected from the elements.  I wish visitors were still allowed to climb up to the ruins, but that stopped in 1950.  There wasn’t too much to see, so our visit was fairly short.  We also made a quick stop at the Montezuma Well on our way back to Sedona.

Once back in Sedona, we stopped for some information at one of the visitors centers and then drove around looking at some of the amazing rock formations, namely Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, and Courthouse Butte.  After that we stopped for lunch at the Oak Creek Brewery & Grill.  Yes, it was my goal to hit as many breweries as possible!  Again we had another great meal and washed it down with some delicious beers.  We had originally planned to take a ride with the Pink Jeep Tours this day, but decided to wait on that until the next day.  Instead, we decided to rent mountain bikes from Bike and Bean for a couple of hour adventure around the Bell Rock area.  It was so much fun, and I think everyone really enjoyed it!

After beating ourselves up on the bikes, we picked up a few six-packs of local beer and headed over to the west side of Sedona to view the sunset.  We decided on a spot along the Red Rock Loop Road, and enjoyed the amazing views east.  Sunsets in Sedona are viewed looking east, not west.  This is because the setting sun really lights up west-facing faces of the red rocks.  It was beautiful!  From there, we had another late dinner at the Barking Frog Grille.  Their website says they are an American restaurant…with a Southwest bark!  The restaurant is much nicer than their website or even the outside of the building would suggest.  We were all treated to some of the best food of the trip, along with some delicious margaritas.  I even got a belated birthday desert!

As mentioned earlier, my photos from the day are below, and again for more pictures see my mom’s flickr page.  Including this one:

Flagstaff on Dwellable