Since Wendy’s foot injury was not making it possible for her to do the club’s 7 mile hike for the day, she instead took 2 other Trailblazers on a shorter but still wonderful hiking expedition. Ted graciously provided a ride from where we left our car to our starting point of the Morgan Road trailhead.

The advantage of this hike was the near solitude we had on Marg’s Draw, and it was mostly flat, which the injured foot appreciated!

Since there were only three of us, we took our sweet time, snapping probably a record number of photos. We had to laugh when we looked at our watches and noticed we were only traveling at an average speed of about 1 mph, but we were more interested in soaking in our surroundings today, rather than covering a lot of miles.

As we got closer to the Snoopy Rock area, we did see a few people along the trail, and stopped briefly to chat with two of them.

Then onward to try and find our way up to Snoopy Rock. It’s only a moderate climb to get to the top, but we decided to settle for taking it easy and soaking in the outstanding views from only part way up the hill.

Views from this vantage point include Chimney Rock, Capital Butte, Coffeepot Rock, The Fin and Steamboat Rock.

We then made our way back to the car, although what we thought was the trail that would lead us to the car actually led into a private neighborhood.

So we took a quick snack break under the shade of a tree and consulted with a passerby who happened to live in that neighborhood. He confirmed that our next trail we were thinking of trying was indeed the one we were looking for, so we soon made our way back to the car.

During our tasty lunch and a round of beverages out on the patio of Javelina Cantina, we knew we were not ready to head back to the valley yet on such a beautiful day, so we pondered our next leg of the trip.

We decided to check out Red Rock Crossing, the most photographed spot in Sedona. And for good reason. We lucked out and got the last parking spot there, and since there were many side trails along the way, we just followed the sounds of kids playing in the creek to guide us there.

You didn’t have to ask us twice – off came the boots immediately upon arriving at Oak Creek! We had our photo taken with Cathedral Rock in the background, while standing in the creek. The huge slab of red rock and shallow water made for smooth walks up and down the creek. The water was perfectly cool and refreshing on this warm but not overly toasty day. Now we definitely did not want to leave!

But alas, we were not staying overnight, so we eventually put on the ol’ boots again and headed back to Phoenix.