Grand designs
| Published date | 06 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
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The engine roared. The girls next to me squealed. And over we went. t. he back of the jeep - and all of us in it - was hoisted aloft like the end of a see-saw as we inched downwards. I was now no longer able to contain my own squeals.
""here's no weepin' in jeepin'!"
'!" our driver, Roger, hollered with a wicked grin, before continuing to efuse anecdotes, jokes and facts, as if he wasn't driving down a 70-degree incline. This was by far the most off-road part of my trip to northern Arizona. In fact, this was the most off-road I'd ever been.
Not long before, I'd been gawping in awe at the incredible landscape that surrounds the small city of Sedona. As I had been all day.
So many magnificent rusty red mountains and rock formations. Peaks and pinnacles. Cliffs and canyons. Like a smaller Monument Valley, yet just minutes from town. I'd never seen anything like it.
"God created the Grand Canyon, but lives in Sedona," driver Roger had said. I don't think he was exaggerating.
Our tour group had flown in a few days previously. It was a sunny Friday afternoon when we'd landed in Phoenix, in stark contrast to the dismal British November we'd left behind. The state capital is nestled on the northern edge of the giant Sonoran Desert, but we didn't hang around, instead hitting the highway north into the mountains and the start of the Colorado Plateau.
As we climbed, the temperature dropped along with the night. Our destination was the former capital, Prescott, up at 5,300ft. Once on the frontier of the old Wild West, the pretty little city is now a world away from its former incarnation as a gritty gold and silver-mining town from where brutal campaigns were waged against the local Native American tribes.
The Friday night streets were dark and sleepy until we reached Whiskey Row on the far side of the historic main square, Courthouse Plaza. As its fantastic name suggests, Whiskey Row is a strip full of lively old-school saloons where cowboys and miners once congregated. There were still plenty of cowboy boots and rakishly-angled hats on display, but the hard drinking and gambling of old was replaced by locals and tourists alike jauntily line-dancing to live music.
After throwing back a few bourbons, I couldn't help but attempt to join in. It wasn't pretty.
I was feeling a little delicate the following morning as we headed out of town to go kayaking on nearby Watson Lake. But my bleariness was soon swept aside when I caught sight of the hypnotically surreal...
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