Aaron and I recently returned from a great vacation with Bonney and Patrick in Sedona, Arizona. We were away for nine days and took a bunch of pictures, so I will divide the vacation into several posts with associated albums to break things up a bit…here goes.

While planning the trip we found a very nice house we could rent for around what a hotel was going to cost us. The opportunity to have a private pool, kitchen and hang-out space was too good to pass up, so even though the house was bigger than we needed – we went for it. It was situated up on a mesa looking over Sedona and the red rock formations. The above photo was taken from the front porch of the house at sunset. We spent the first couple days relaxing and unwinding and then started to explore the area.

We visited the misnamed Montezuma’s Castle and Montezuma’s Well – neither of which have anything to do with the Aztec ruler, Montezuma. They were apparently incorrectly associated with Montezuma by early European Americans and the name stuck. In actuality, they are well-preserved cliff dwellings thought to have been built and used by the Sinagua Indians around 1300 AD. The Well is a collapsed limestone cavern fed by underground springs. Later that day we drove to Jerome; a town literally built into the side of a hill around a now defunct copper mine. The following day we took a beautiful drive via the scenic route up through Oak Creek Canyon and up to Flagstaff. The view from the top of the canyon was much greener (thanks to the Ponderosa Pines) than we had seen in days. It’s amazing how quickly the terrain changes out there. Click on the image above to see the first batch of photos.