Picked up Caroline from her office about 30 minutes early and headed north for an overnight up in Sedona. Turns out this fire up near Crown King was burning Sunday night when we passed through the area on our way home from the Grand Canyon, but under the cover of darkness, we couldn’t see the smoke. Katharina has an early morning appointment near Sedona that would have required us to leave Phoenix shortly before 4:00 in the morning, so grabbing a cheap room up north felt in order.
We made it up to this corner of the red rocks before sunset, allowing Kat to capture some of the sights she’ll likely miss in the morning as our route will take us south out of town. Matter of fact, we’ll be heading out so early that besides Denny’s, there won’t be anything else open for breakfast. Once up this way, I wanted to run us up to Oak Creek Canyon for the drive past Slide Rock up to Flagstaff, but remaining daylight is not in our favor, and most dinner options on a summer Tuesday night in Sedona end at 9:00, so we’ll need to tend to that too.
We only had time for a few short impressions as the sun was going to set at 7:40, so we stopped for a quick shot and continued further up the road.
Everything was going great until we recognized that Kat seemed to be getting too much sun. We’d been trying to convince her to drink more water and wear more sunblock, but she thought .25 liters of SPF 50 per day was enough. Now she knows that in the Arizona desert, you wear SPF 250 and drink gallons of water, or this happens. It’s a shame to see our 19-year-old niece seeming to age right before our eyes.
The constant knitting, weaving, audiobooks, tea, and folk music have allowed Caroline to age gracefully, and even as she approaches her senior years, I gotta say that my wife is still one of the hottest women I’ve known, and if she were to ask me again to marry her, I wouldn’t hesitate. Sure, the wrinkles are getting thicker, but those eyes still pull me in, and I just melt as we smile at each other.
As for me, well, spending more than two weeks with our niece has exacted a heavy toll on my nerves, and the stress has turned my hair white and generally made me look like a candidate to play Santa Claus this coming Christmas. I’m seriously considering some plastic surgery and maybe even dying my hair after she leaves this Saturday. Let this serve as a warning to others that 19-year-olds hanging out with you 24 hours a day will steal your remaining youth and turn you into an old person prematurely.
Oops, almost missed the sunset while playing with that stupid FaceApp that Brinn brought to my attention. After a couple more photos of the fading light, we made our way over to Cucina Rustica for some very reasonable Italian cooking that would draw us back. Then, under the full moon stained red by the smoke that had been drifting up to Sedona from the fire we passed earlier, we were at our cheapo motel and trying to get to sleep quickly for our 5:30 alarm.