Sedona Day Trip, Part 2

Alright, where did I leave off from my earlier post about our day trip to Sedona…?

Oh that’s right, the caves!

At this point in the day, it was getting so hot and we were so sweaty, that it was time for a clothing and scenery change! Luckily the caves had restrooms and potable water, despite being out in the middle of nowhere.

Originally I wanted to get in some wine tasting, since Page Springs is one of the largest wine grape-growing regions in Arizona. I mean, the lead singer of Tool/A Perfect Circle even has a winery out here called Caduces Cellars! How rad is that?!

But alas, it would have been a 25-mile drive in the opposite direction and we only had a few hours of daylight left to enjoy downtown Sedona.

So we went to the shopping district and enjoyed frozen treats!

It was at this point we heard talk about this famous “Snoopy Rock” which you can kind of see in the background. I’ll get to that later.

By this point, I was pretty full. I couldn’t even finish mint Heath bar ice cream. But did that stop me from wanting to go into the wine tasting room?

Heck no. I’m the daughter of a wine-maker, I take it upon myself to try wines of various different regions!

We split a $15, 6-wine flight tasting of regional chilled wines. The guy who worked there was really nice and he had a cute dog. It didn’t get awkward until he told me he was my dad’s age and then started hitting on me. At least the wines were good… whatever helps sell your product.

Despite never having heard of it before, I really enjoyed the white merlot but we ended up leaving with a bottle of the house-made Page Springs Peach. Weird, huh? It was tasty and refreshing. I was also sorta bummed they were out of the sparkling wine! It was the only one I really wanted to try.

Once the wine was nestled safely into the car, it was time to explore the shopping area.

It was cute and picturesque – and also sort of weird. You see, Sedona claims to be a mix of hippies and artists. To me, it seemed like the hub of New Age activity. Or maybe that’s Santa Cruz. But the local merchants were all trying to sell “healing crystals” and everyone was trying to make a profit off the local energy “vortexes” vortices? I took geometry and I still don’t remember what the plural is. That’s why I have a Bachelor of Arts, my friends. Who only took one science class (astronomy) in college?! This chick. Anyways, if you want to read about the energy vortexes (I never saw one, so I won’t waste space here), check out this link.

If I had any money and more time though, I’d totally eat it up.

PINK JEEP TOURS!!!

What’s so special about a pink jeep tour, you ask?

I have no clue. But everyone and their mom was taking them. I totally want to do it next time!

Playing tourists, we walked around from shop to shop and got a good look at Snoopy Rock (whoa, was that in some kind of rhyming meter?!).

See the resemblance?! I had to buy a magnet, you know, for Woodstock’s sake. Next time I want to get a picture of Woody in front of it!

After the sightseeing and playing tourist, I wanted to check out a local Arts & Crafts village, but it had closed down for the evening. Only restaurants and coffee shops were still open past 5 p.m. on a Tuesday on the first day of summer.

Instead, we explored the village and got some neat pictures. It seriously reminded me of Europe (Spain in particular), or I imagine nicer parts of Mexico?

Before leaving the area, we had one final stop to make: Javelina Cantina! Someone recommended their margaritas as the best in town. I was sold.

The seating area was really cute and quite busy for a weekday night. But the staff was efficient and tables were turning over quickly. We didn’t even have to wait to sit, despite a party of 30 on the balcony. The bar was also jam-packed. Perhaps everyone heard the same thing about margaritas that I did.

With views like this, no wonder it was so busy.

Before long, chips and salsa came to our table and I found myself easily talked into the prickly pear margarita (one of my favorite drinks since moving here to Arizona). This one probably takes the cake. It was the biggest, most flavorful and still very salty/tequila-y margarita I’ve had in Arizona.

Quite refreshing – and necessary – in the near 100 degree evening. When the food arrived, I settled on a salmon tostada and J.D. ordered sizzling shrimp fajitas.

The food was beautiful, fresh (for having an ocean four hours west, it was impressive!) and actually included a lot of produce. The portions were huge, too, and we each boxed up our dinners for lunch the following day.

If you come to Arizona, definitely take the time to see Sedona, go to Javelina and get a margarita! Oh yeah, and don’t forget to see these javelinas either ;)

(I’ve yet to see one in my life. They’re hideous creatures. But not too bad in pink, don’t you agree?)

Next time I want to go back to Page Springs and do the winery circuit! And maybe make stops in Flagstaff or Prescott. Since, this is technically my summer “vacation.”

Week 24: Painting Class

I used to love to draw when I was younger. My sister and I took a series of drawing classes from our local community center when we were in middle or elementary school – I can’t exactly remember. I’ve only painted on a canvas a few times in my life, but have never actually attended a painting class.

Which is why I leapt out of my seat when I got my daily Groupon e-mail a few weeks ago. $40 for two people to attend the Bottles & Paint class at an art gallery in Mesa. Painting and wine… sounds like a great time to me! Now he’s charging $50 per person for the class, so that was a pretty good purchase.

The gallery closes down for the evening and the owner offers painting classes after hours, from 7-9 p.m. every weekend. Downtown Mesa is really cute and I would definitely like to come back during normal business hours.

When the class started, everyone grabbed their seats, cups of wine in hand, unsure of what was going to happen. We each had a print out of a trio of tulips for us to use as inspiration or guidelines when painting our own images. He had a small stock of photos to choose from to copy for those of us who weren’t interested in the tulips, but I wasn’t really feeling anything else.

First he gave us the option of drawing our own flowers or he would do it for us. I seized the opportunity and drew my own and also J.D.’s. I think I should also point out that it was around this time the group of women in front of us really started getting rowdy. We assume they had been pre-partying prior to the class. They were a group of four on a girls’ night out, about our parents’ ages. And the rest of the night started to get hysterical. Our old hippie instructor was loving it.

Once the drawings were on the canvas, we set to work on painting in the background. I started doing blotches of red paint and then mixed in another layer of orange on top. When the background was complete, we were told to get to work on the leaves and then finally the petals. The goal was to get the base colors down first, then accent later.

It was a blast! About an hour into the class he told us to get up and explore the gallery, because the eyes need to focus on something else before finishing the painting.

It was a really cute little gallery and we now have coupons for purchasing any of his pieces, or coming back for another class in the future.

I’m sold! I had a blast and I definitely want to paint some more. I loved everything about this experience and now we have two decent sized canvases to hang on the wall.

We all took individual and group shots for the gallery’s Facebook page… Our artist didn’t quite know how to use a cell phone… this was the fourth photo attempt he tried on my iPhone haha. Oh well, it was a blast! I’d recommend checking to see if anything like this is offered near you.