Thursday Tidbits

Posted on April 19, 2018 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Sedona, Arizona

“But it’s alright now; I learned my lesson well,

You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself”

Garden Party. Ricky Nelson

It’s so true. Not everything we do in the run of a day is met with universal praise.

My piece on baptism which ran on Tuesday was one the most read stories that I’ve posted in quite some time. Maybe it was the picture of the baptismal font with the stained glass in the background that caught your eye. Whatever it was, most of you liked it. Writing about religion of any sort is tempting fate. It remains an important part in the lives of millions of people throughout the world.

Writing about growing up Catholic is a tricky proposition in our part of the world. There have been good times and times we’d rather forget. A few of you took exception to me taking a light hearted approach to the sacrament of baptism. As I have said many, many times over the past six years, my posts are intended to entertain and give people an opportunity to smile in a world that seems so fragile and agitated. Maybe religion is too sacred a topic to treat lightly. Weigh in!

I was so pleased to hear that a few women have decided to join the local chapter of 100 Women Who Care after reading my post on Monday. Don’t know what this is? Check this out from Monday’s post. https://www.week45.com/monday-morning-musings-241/

Arizona is as advertised… hot and dry. I’m not going to rub it in, especially in light of the destructive weather that I’ve been witnessing in Central and Eastern Canada. For the next four days, I’m animal sitting for my hosts who are away on family matters. I am looking after three small dogs and two cats. One of the dogs, Daisy, a kooikerhondje, loves to walk. We do a couple of walks daily totaling around 15K.

I have heard a lot about the small town of Sedona, Arizona and yesterday, after feeding and walking the pets, I jumped in the van and drove a few hours north to Flagstaff and then down to Sedona. My guess is that many of you have been there. Driving through the desert, it is hard to imagine how this land became inhabited, being so arid and desolate. I got a kick out of some of the names along the way: Bloody Basin and Horsethief.

The road from Flagstaff to Sedona is quite stunning with high mountains on either side of the road amid groves of pine trees. How did they ever construct this road? It descends over 20 miles or so with some of the tightest switchbacks I’ve ever seen. Sedona is visually stunning with red sandstone mountains. Apparently this area was once an inland sea with high iron content. The iron oxidized giving the mountains their reddish hue. It’s a bit of a tourist trap.

Because my time was limited, I took a one hour trolley tour which went outside the town to some of the famous vistas. The highlight was the tour guide. If he was a Californian, he would be a surfer dude but this guy lives to hike. When he’s not chatting up tourists, he’s somewhere in the mountains. He claims to have seen just about every kind of wildlife including bears, bobcats, mountain lions and rattle snakes. His worst encounter? One day he was walking along a popular trail when he met a young girl walking with her Chihuahua. As he bent to pet the dog, it snapped at his feet causing him to recoil and take a few step backwards… right into a cactus plant. It took him three days to remove the thorny splinters from his butt.

In a week’s time, I’ll be flying up to Victoria to spend some time with Pete and brother Tom.

Some of you have asked about my India book. I am spending a fair bit of time in Arizona doing some editing. It’s coming along well and should be ready to go in the late fall.

Have a great weekend