Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Easter and Honanki

We picked up Marcel and Fran, our dear friends from Alberta, Canada, on Friday. They flew down for the week, and luckily the weather has cooperated nicely. Surprisingly, it has been pretty warm for them the last week, even though they can hit -50 degrees in the winter. Marcel reports they have had much less snow than usual too... I'm guessing the same systems that brought us a wet winter dipped low and missed them. Well, we're in a terrible drought, and need the moisture more. That's my story, though I sure hope they get a good amount of rain this summer.

Saturday we slept in, then Dakota, Nic and Gina came over @ 10, and we decorated eggs, hid them and had a lovely time. After they left we went to Honanki ruins, between here and Sedona. They are off on a dirt road, and although we saw a couple Pink Jeep tours there, it was pretty uncrowded. There was a couple selling Native American jewelry, some of it made by the lady, which was really nice.

Honanki ruins is an easy walk from the parking area, but it does require a Sedona Red Rock parking pass. It's a smaller ruin, but you can walk right up to the walls, and there are a few petroglyphs on the rock cliffs above the ruins. If you can ignore the graffiti around it, they are pretty cool. I guess the petroglyphs can be considered graffiti too, but come on, have a little respect!

The rock cliffs soar upwards for over a 100 feet above the ruins, it's an absolutely beautiful setting. I highly recommend it. Honanki is about 20 minutes from Cottonwood and the same from Sedona, and is a National Park setting.

Sunday was a beautiful Easter day, and we lounged around, watched General Conference and had a big meal- ham, potato salad, gelatin salad, lots of deviled eggs. Nic has been making a jalapeno deviled egg, and boy are they good! Megan and Taylor came over, bringing a marvelous broccoli salad. Gina made most of the meal here. After our little hike Saturday, I couldn't move, so she and Nic made most of the dinner, including Tres Leches cake. Yummy!

Click picture below to see album!

Christmas 2008

Carthage Jail & Nauvoo Temple