Northern Arizona Thanksgiving

Hi everyone! Dan here, checking in from Arizona. We're now in Tucson, Arizona's second largest city and home of the saguaro cactus. More on that in a future post though - this one is about our two week stay up in Flagstaff, Arizona. We were there for basically the second half of November, including Thanksgiving.

Flagstaff is the largest city in northern Arizona - and if you haven't been to Arizona before, it doesn't look at all like you might think! It's located up in the mountains at about 7,000ft elevation. The landscape is covered in ponderosa pines, and from any unobstructed location in the city you can see the nearby mountain peaks. Here's the view from our Airbnb:

With that high elevation also comes colder temperatures, with daytime highs around 35-50 degrees (Fahrenheit) while we were in town. We even got a little bit of snow! The trees, cold temperatures, and snow reminded us of Michigan. I got out to throw a round of wintery disc golf before all of the snow melted (there were five solid courses right in town! A huge step up from Albuquerque in that regard).

We really enjoyed exploring Flagstaff. Even though it's a smaller town than Albuquerque or Denver, there is a lot to do. There's a nice downtown area - including a focus on Route 66 history. We visited the famous Lowell Observatory, where the now-dwarf planet Pluto was discovered in 1930. The observatory is basically right in town, which is possible thanks to Flagstaff's status as the first International Dark Sky city! The streetlights were all LEDs, and appeared much yellower than normal.

As mentioned, we also celebrated Thanksgiving there. This was our first Thanksgiving away from Michigan, so it definitely felt a bit different. We spent quality time chatting with both of our families in the days surrounding the holiday, and watched the Detroit Lions game to hold onto that part of our holiday tradition (tough loss, ugh!). Corinne also made us a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with roasted chicken and carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and two miniature pies for dessert. I did contribute by doing all of the clean-up!

Similar to previous legs of the trip, we filled out our time in northern Arizona with a few mini trips to nearby destinations:

• Grand Canyon National Park - The one and only Grand Canyon is only about a 90 minute drive from Flagstaff. Pictures don't really do the place justice, so I have no chance of adequately describing it with words. Suffice it to say that the expanse is truly jaw-dropping in person. We did not venture down into the canyon at all, so it almost felt like a green screen just standing on the rim. We were also surprised at the trees covering the rim - we had imagined barren desert landscape. Most visitors stay around the Grand Canyon Village and main visitor center area, but we actually preferred the Desert View area some 23 miles to the east - fewer crowds, a beautiful drive to get there, and you're able to see even further from the top of the Desert View Watchtower (pictured in last photo below)!

• Petrified Forest National Park - A gem that somehow flies way, way under the radar! Despite being located only a couple of hours from the Grand Canyon and right off of I-40, apparently this place only gets about 800,000 visitors a year - compared to the Grand Canyon's five million. This park is smaller, but packs in a huge variety of landscapes. There are jagged Painted Desert views, similar to a scaled-down Grand Canyon. There is tons of Indigenous history as well as more Route 66 history. There are huge wastelands full of the park's namesake petrified wood. I think our favorite was an area at the center of the park with Badlands-like (we're told) visible rock layers. We did a short 1-mile hike down into a sort of canyon with these rock layers, and it was surreal. I joked to Corinne that I no longer needed to fly to the moon to see another world up close!

• Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona/Montezuma Castle - A Black Friday excursion brought us to Sedona, a town famous for its striking red rock landscape and art. We found the place jammed with other tourists, but it was still worthwhile to check out. We also stopped at a disc golf course nearby, which turned out to be a wonderful way to get out into the breathtaking natural landscape without the crowds. The drive to and from Sedona were also significant parts of the journey. The most direct route to Sedona from Flagstaff involves driving down Oak Creek Canyon - a scenic byway that switchbacks again and again as it works its way several thousand feet downhill in a short distance. After visiting Sedona, we detoured to Montezuma Castle National Monument which is home to one of the best-preserved Indigenous cliff dwellings.

Our time in and around Flagstaff was everything we hoped it would be and more - but after two weeks, it was time to re-stash the winter coats and drive down the mountains/across the desert to Tucson. Even though we were driving separate cars, Corinne and I were each stunned by the same sight as we rounded a corner on the freeway north of Phoenix - our first Saguaro cactus sighting, standing tall like a sentinel on a hillside next to the road. That was a great introduction to the next leg of our trip - Tucson and the Sonoran Desert!