A Different Kind of Day

Yesterday Bud suggested we rent an ATV in town. Vortex ATV Rentals set us up with a two-seater, a map and tablet with our route, a cooler, helmets and goggles and we were off.

We set out following the route. At first we were on a dirt road headed towards those distant cliffs.

We turned onto an OHV (off highway vehicle) Trail…

and drove into more rugged country.

We were back on a dirt road as we approached the cliffs. These are the famous red rocks of Sedona.

And they are beautiful.

After almost two hours we came to the site of the Honanki Cliff Dwellings.

There are a lot of people cooperating to preserve this space.

As we approached the ruins we walked through tall trees, so there was water here.

These ancient homes were built into the base of the red rock cliff,

they stretched along the cliff,

and were themselves made from the red rocks. Beautiful.

Not only were the dwellings stunning,

we loved seeing the pictographs.

I overheard a guide explaining some of these…

and wished we had a guide ourselves.

We left as per our route, on 9551, the Outlaw Trail.

We chose not to eat lunch at the ruins because there were too many people there. Whole truckloads, in fact.

We drove out until we got to a place where we could stop and eat on the upwind side of the dusty trail.

I tried to capture just how rough this trail was in spots.

You might be able to tell a bit from this far from professional video I took. Near the end I say, “Whoa, we hit something.” To which Bud replies, “Bottomed out.” And my phone kind of flies around.

We continued to drive through the beautiful country, down across this bit of a canyon,

until we got to the Power-line Trail. I think that was the most rugged.

We even had to open and close gates along the way. In one of the roughest sections, where the trail went down into a deep gulch and then back up again, we saw an SUV at the bottom. Bud backed away from the brink of the hill to allow him to come up. When he didn’t Bud drove down. It was a BMW and had been abandoned there. The bottom of the gulch wasn’t much longer than the car, his front and back bumpers were both nearly touching the ground. Sorry I didn’t get a picture, I was too busy holding on! It’s a mystery to me how he ever got it that far.

We figure we went about a hundred miles in all. It was a fun ride through some beautiful country and an unusual day for us.