July 8, Day 8 Road Trip

From Buddha’s enlightenment to a beastly Pheonix

Good morning Sedona! Going to head out soon to explore Cathedral Rock Vortex then off to Buddha beach…stay tuned 10:29 AM Jul 8th, 2009 via Twittelator

Both Steve and Greg weren’t into taking the day to hike up one of the vortexes. (a little too “new agey” for them) The night before I shared my experience when I visited Sedona about 6 years ago as part of a (spiritual) retreat. Our group made the hike to one of the vortex cores. What I felt was indescribable, sort of a rich comforting of warm wash energy cleansing my body. I would have loved to share that experience with Miro as well, but didn’t look like that was going to happen. I shared my experience with the group, thinking it would inspire the hike, but low and behold, the skeptical Steve and Greg simply weren’t into it.

I suppose it’s a matter of being sensitive to energy, as I always have been. Even though the energy from the vortexes are said to effect the entire city of Sedona, by visiting where the energy is strongest at one of the vortex sites, it is a powerful and uplifting experience. Nevertheless, being in Sedona was a treat on to itself.
Instead of the hike, we decided to on an alternative. A lady from our campground told us about the national park at Red Rock Creek that had can access to a beautiful beach called Buddha Beach. It was supposed to be at the base of one of the red rock formations and that sounded great to me. Tide pools, a creek, and a beach, perfect alternative.

Once again we hitched the camper to the van and set off. When we arrived, we headed immediately to the tide pools and spent about an hour or so playing in the pools of water, exploring the landscape. We saw all kinds of wild life, tadpoles, frogs, fish, etc, lots of fun. Along the tide pools was the path, which we were told accessed Buddha Beach….so off we went.

As we followed the path, we stated to notice rocks stacked up, one right on top of each other. The rocks were round and flat, and started from large to small. So, Miro and I grabbed a few from the rock littered trails and made our own meditation rock towers. For me, it meditative, for Miro, I’m sure it was a practice in construction. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun and I had to persuade Miro from not kicking over the towers once we were finished.

When we got to the shore of Buddha Beach, the beach itself was surrounding a pond or small lake reservoir. Across on the opposite side was a rope swing. Miro and I went into the lake, and he swam across to the other side. I didn’t want to go over there and he begged for me to come over and help. Eventually Steve went over and helped Miro with the rope swing where he remained for close to an hour, swinging back and forth and landing in the lake. Lot’s of fun to watch as he was having the time of his life.

http://twitpic.com/9q46w – Loved Red Rock Creek at Buddha Beach!!!! Sedona rocks! 4:11 PM Jul 8th, 2009 via TwitPic

Soon though, it was time to hit the road. We were going to make our way back to Phoenix to get Greg home where we were planning on staying for the night before heading back to California.. Our trip was ending a day early from what we originally planned, bringing a 10 day trip down to 9 but that was perfectly fine with me. I was so ready to get out of the scorching heat. I was so ready to be done with this trip.

– @Hildebrant Yay! super exhttp://twitpic.com/9q4y5cited to meet the “man of branding” tonight + my fav Twitter friend;-) 4:18 PM Jul 8th, 2009 via TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/9rc9g – Having a glass of absenthe with @Hildebrant in Scotsdale 10:34 PM Jul 8th, 2009 via TwitPic

We arrived in Phoenix around 7:00ish. I was looking forward to a shower and meeting a friend and colleague from the branding world, that I spoke with often via twitter. Kyle is one of the owners of a branding agency called Ovo and an amazing talent. He lives in Phoenix, so it was a perfect opportunity for us to finally meet. We arranged for him to pick me up at Greg’s, which he did and then we set out for drinks. We ended up going to Scottsdale because Kyle said that’s where the great spots were.

It was great meeting him, felt like meeting an old friend. It was also great getting dressed in clothes that weren’t more appropriate for a camper. It was great getting away from the group for an evening (and it was great for Miro to spend 1 last evening with his dad before we left). It was a great break from the last 8 days, and a great opportunity to get some space between the group dynamics. Oh yeah, it was also great drinking the absinthe with Kyle.

It was a great end to our little road trip, even though, the last leg, the drive back to California was in front of us the next morning.

Yes, a road trip.

This is something I’m certain I won’t do again in the desert in the middle of July.
This is something I’m certain I won’t do again in the company of a person I intuitively knew was not the best choice to travel with.
This is something I’m certain I won’t do again but am grateful for the experience, the time Miro and I had with Greg, the adventure we had.