Everyone sleeps better when they’re home, right? Well, we ALL slept better at MIKE’S home last night, and woke extra early to wash the cars before the Phoenix sun became high and scorching. We got the job done while there was still some shade, and lined the fleet up for portraits. We also hit Mike’s neighbors with Team Boomer rubber bracelets and C3on66 brochures to encourage donations!
Quick stop at Walmart for supplies, another couple of hours at Musical Instrument Museum (we all love that place!) then we hit the road in earnest for Flagstaff, by way of Sedona. I’m not sure of the exact route we took, but we ended up running on Highway 89 and 89A, through Prescott, to Sedona, and finally after dark into Flagstaff. These were no ordinary roads; they were the most fantastic twisty, climbing, descending, wide and well-maintained mountain roads we’d ever been on. Traffic was almost non-existent, so we took advantage of being in low-slung powerful sports cars, and boogied hard. It was almost exhausting, staying laser-focused on the driving, watching the incredible mountain scenery, and keeping up with Mitch who was really hammering. Hours of driving fun were had, probably never to be equalled.
On a much more serious and poignant note, we visited a Memorial State Park the State of Arizona established in honor of 19 forest fire fighters, the “Granite Mountain Hotshots”, who died fighting the Yarnell Hill Forest Fire in June 2013. Whatever cause may have been determined, the gist of the tragedy is that a raging fire driven by high winds abruptly changed direction, trapping the 19 Hotshots, killing them all in minutes. Some were from Prescott or nearby towns, some from California and other Western states, and the senior Hotshot was a native of North Carolina. The monument had a separate biography plaque for each man, and reading them individually was an emotional experience. Prescott, AZ has a huge wall mural of their portraits in a town square, and there are references to the Granite Mountain Hotshots everywhere. These guys will not be forgotten, they now seem to be woven into the fabric of the community. A fantastic fun photo of the whole Hotshot crew taken just 11 days before their death, shows the kind of guys we’re talking about. Inspiring, devastating, and sad to have learned today of their lives, and their loss.
After more epic mountain driving adventures, we arrived in Sedona earlier than expected, and had the luck to snag a “table with a view” at The Hudson restaurant. This place lets you stay only 2 hours, mostly because it has the most spectacular sunset views of the huge rock formations in Sedona. You can’t take a perfect view patio table and stay there all afternoon waiting for sunset! We came, we ate, we saw, and we loved it! What a perfect ending to a pretty perfect day.
Our charity meet-up at a local car dealer was never promoted by the local charity, so we didn’t accomplish much on our donation drive today. We DID pass out plenty of swag and C3on66 donation brochures to the many people who spoke to us during the day. Hoping for success with the QR codes on the brochures and the the cars!
