Day 22: Mea Culpa. I found the comments. In Sedona, Arizona.

 OK, true confessions here. I said to Nan, "I'm surprised nobody is commenting on the blog." Well, I found them. I was not receiving notifications of comments and I don't actually read the blog from the published page so I didn't see the comments.  I have the settings such that comments must be moderated so as to avoid spammers trying to flood the blog with offers to enhance your physique. I have fixed the setting so that I will receive a notice when you comment, even if you are telling me off. You should be able to see your comments now.

And, would you like to get the most out of the See where we are riding in real time link? Open the link and look at the top of the map for a little symbol that looks like a half moon. Click that icon and you will get a drop down menu with the first choice being "Density/Fill percentages. This setting allows you to see much closer intervals of the tracking pings for as little as five minutes when you click "all". Then the next setting is for how much history you want. The default settings upload minimal data and you can only see so much. Fine tuning will allow you to zoom in and envision yourself riding around those curves with us on the handlebars of the motorcycle. 

My apologies that I didn't deal with this sooner but I only JUST realized what a dolt I am. 

Just made worse by the fact that I fell asleep (June 9) while doing today's entry and deleted everything I had written.

Sedona, Arizona

Distance for the day: 91.1 km

Cumulative distance: 4,674.9 km

Top speed: 95 kph

Moving average: 46 kph

Temperature: 26.0 -33.0

Chapel of the Holy Cross, completed in 1956 at a cost of $300,000.

This house overlooks the Red Rock State Park, The building
materials were brought to the location via helicopter.

This is the entry to the house, far below. The sculpter
is part of a sculpture up at the house.

The desert flowers are in bloom

This cactus doesn't normally produce red blossoms. But because they have had a wet spring this year, it is believed that the excess water helped produce different coloured flowers.

This close up of the red rock shows its sedimentary nature.

Petroglyphs in Red Rock State Park. Dated to aroun 1100 - 1200 CE.

This waking bridge over Oak Creek in the park is the high water mark in flood season, which happens every year.

This house was built in the 40s by Jack and Helen Frye. He was the founder of TWA. They divorced and the house eventually ended up in the hands of a religious cult before being part of a land swap to acquire land for the park.

This is Scott, the volunteer guide touring me around Red Rock State Park. This lady was passing by and said "I could sure use a proper walking stick like that. So after some discussion, Scott gave her his walking stick.

This range is called The Seven Warriors, named for the last Apache natives fighting a battle with US Cavalry fighting to take over the land.

When your city is home to the type of breathtaking natural beauty you find in Sedona, you take preserving that beauty seriously. When McDonald’s representatives approached the city of Sedona about opening a location in the shopping center, they engaged in discussions with Sedona’s city council and Planning & Zoning commission. Unlike the typical McDonald’s design with its trademark large arches and red and yellow palette, the West Sedona plans were designed to ensure consistency with the Pueblo-revival style of the shopping center without taking away from the surrounding area’s natural beauty.

Whether they knew it or not, their collaboration would lead to building one more attraction for visitors to Sedona, Arizona. Today, tourists from all over the world stop at roadside restaurant not only to grab a bite to eat but to snap a picture with the only turquoise arches in the world.

Day 21: We've got Mingus.

Sedona, Arizona

Distance for the day: 111.5 km

Cumulative distance: 4,583.8 km

Top speed: 114 kph

Moving average: 54 kph

Temperature: 30.8 - 40.6

Prescott's finest.

Er, maybe second best.

Pretty short day, which was good because we had a lot of stop and go traffic and despite it only being 40 degrees, we were warm pretty fast. 
We did have a couple of real treats on the way, though. The first is that we rode over Mingus Pass on the Mingus Scenic Byway, near Mingus Mountain just before we came to Mingus Road. We debated about the origin of the name "Mingus" and we eventually concluded it must be a terrible disease to have all these place names with "Mingus". In any event, we got it in

spades.  The Mingus Scenic Byway is a short but fun twisty ride over a pass between Prescott Valley (not to be confused with Prescott, a separately incorporated city, where we stayed last night) and Sedona. Once we were over the pass, we were greeted by the beginning of the red rock formations predominant in the area. Spectacularly beautiful, the red rock here is not a subtle shade of red but rather, full on beet. Even some of the roads here incorporate the redness and it is quite dramatic. The red colour is

The closer we get to Sedona,
the redder the rocks

Old mining (?) buildings.

largely from a mineral called hematite and the red is highly evident entering the valley. Also  on the pass, there were signs of some long ago dwellings and I am guessing, small mining operations. This was once a rabid copper mining area and, to a lesser degree, silver. There was a large build up of mining activity starting in the late 1800s however, in the aftermath of WWII, the diminished demand for copper killed the mining economy here and the big copper mine that sustained the area closed in 1953.

After the Mingus Pass and Mingus mining area, we passed through the ghost town of Ming Jerome. Hard to call this a "ghost town" given that it was jam packed with people. It must be America's busiest ghost town. People were driving at 2 miles per hour ready to kill for a parking spot. This may in fact be why it is called a "ghost town". The heat made me want to kill the guy in the car ahead of us.

We passed by Red Rock State Park and made mental note of it, then into Sedona. We were at The Star Motel about 12:30 but our messaging clearly states that check-in is after 3:00 pm so we go across the street and have lunch, during which I received a text message indicating the room was ready and the code to enter the room. This is a new fangled motel with no resident manager. Everything is done via internet - reservations, payment, check-in and just leave when the reservation is up. There is even a concierge service to leave beverages in the room for arrival.  The motel has 10 rooms so hard to pay for a duty manager. As an alternative, they provide a phone number. I actually think it is run by A.I. the T1000, in fact. 

I've heard so much about Sedona. Mostly about the beauty and the spiritualness. Well here we are, witnessing the best Sedona has to offer.

This store is called "Indian Touch of Sedona".
Of course, not a single Indigenous person was
working in there. And check out those figures outside the store!

I actually thought this sculpture was kind of cute.

I didn't know this is what they meant by "vortex".

Glad to be able to see the mountains.