More Sedona..................

Riding, Eating and (Gasp!) Working

If you can't tell by now, we REALLY like the Sedona/Flagstaff area! It is definitely an area we could consider living in. From what we can tell, there are two major issues; house prices and job market. Decent housing in Sedona starts at around $600,00(ouch). Of course, we are going to need to go back to work once we decide to land somewhere. The only industry in Sedona is tourism, not sure we want to get into catrering to the tourist! Luckily, we don't have to worry about finding jobs and housing now, we still have most of the country to explore!

Speaking of working, I had the opportunity to do a marketing event for Maverick Ranch. New frontiers is a natural food store with locations in Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott. On Thursday, I made the drive down to the Prescott store to sample and talk chicken with the customers and meat dept staff. I went through a quick training with the staff on 'organic' vs. 'natural' and our 'air chilled' chicken vs. Commodity chicken. Between the events I'm doing on the road and maintaining the business have developed back home in Michigan, we are doing a pretty good job of covering monthly expenses.


After putting in a tough 4 hours of working, it's back to as much riding as possible! On Friday, I went out and did a six mile, fairly technical ride that involved almost 1,000 of climbing. The views were incredible. I was able to take a dirt road back down to the campground. I hit 34 miles an hour on the way down!



Later in day, we took the Suzuki back up the road for some easy off-roadig. We had the bikes with us; so, Laura decided she was going to ride down and beat my speed. Well, she hit 39 mph on the downhill, I had to confirm it on her bike computer! That little section is only about 1.5 miles long, so it is a pretty steep decent! We then went out and did some additional miles in the canyons in the Northwest part of town(Deadman's Pass trail). It was a little flatter and less technical then earlier in the day, but has amazing views and rock formations!



After a long day of riding its time to refuel. These cactus can be a real pain in the butt (literally, if you fall!) out on the trail, However....



...We find they are absolutely delicious when sliced, battered, fried and served with a red pepper chipoltle sauce! I would highly recommend pairing with a prickly pear juice margarita as well!



We had this as an appetizer at one our favorite places here, the Cowboy Club, located in uptown Sedona! For entrees, Laura had a bone-in filet and I had prime rib! Broke the budget on this meal, but it was well worth it!

For Saturday, we have to change sites at our campground. We decided to add-on a day and they had our site reserved to someone else. Later in the day we plan on visiting the Bike and Bean (great local bike shop!)customer appreciation BBQ and hitting Broken arrow and Submarine rock trails.

More later,

Rich