Mountains from Washington to Arizona

Red rocks of Sedona, AZ, from the Bell Rock Trail.

Beautiful Sedona, Arizona, glows in today's late afternoon sun. We just arrived here last night after a marathon two-day, one-night road trip from the soggy gray Northwest to the brilliant Southwest. My artist's muse is already revitalized after just one day in the sun!

This is how the trip started, with snow and threatening clouds over the North Cascades outside of Seattle.

After way too many miles of plowing through the morning gloom, we approached the pass in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. Trucks slowed to a crawl heading uphill through the slush.

The mountains really were blue!

 
Hours later we rolled into Boise, Idaho, and I rolled out of Subway with three double chocolate cookies. They didn't last long, and the next day I was quite upset when I hit up four Subways in Flagstaff and not a single one had the double chocolate.

But before Flagstaff, we saw a real flag staff in yet more snowy mountains, these ones in Utah south of Salt Lake City on Day 2 of our journey.

More snowy mountains in Utah.

Then we finally made it to southern Utah near the Arizona border and the climate changed dramatically. Snow was replaced by scrubby vegetation and puffy white clouds in a blue sky.

We stopped for lunch at the Rocking V Café in Kanab, Utah, just north of the Arizona border. It was colorful enough to deserve two photos here. Love that purple wall!

Then we barreled through northern Arizona and the skies turned dramatic again:

 
We made it to Sedona after dark, and this morning I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of the sunrise. It promised to be a glorious, sunny day, and it was.

Sunrise in Sedona, AZ.

We hiked the Bell Rock Trail, and late afternoon sun cast long shadows and turned the ground and rocks fiery orange. And so it will go, day after day ... can't wait. The old batteries definitely are recharging.
 

Have a colorful day