We were so tired of the dry boring drive! We'd heard that Sedona was an amazing place with all kinds of vortexes and spiritual powers. I was ready to see the beautiful rock formations and the kids wanted to take the jeep tour.
We'd been driving since very early morning across some really tedious terrain. We kept expecting to see those big red rocks but it had been flat forever and I was wondering if we were on the right road.
Suddenly, we started to curve down though a beautiful canyon with a vivid blue stream running right next to the road. We were eager to stop and cool off, so we took a hike along the stream called Oak Creek. The creek runs through a series of narrow walled canyons that are very much like a natural water slide. The kids really wanted to get in, but this wasn't to be as it was closed down due to an over-full out house that had leached bad stuff into the water. I was really glad that they were honest about that one! We had other worries without getting dysentery too.
We were on our third day of Ben complaining about a problem he was having in his nether regions. The poor guy was outnumbered by us girls telling him in turn, to either quit whining (KD) or to try this medicine or that ointment (me).He wasn't really sure about how to convey the details of his discomfort because it was in a very delicate lo-cal. While Ben has never been known to be shy, this time he felt totally abandoned by male support.
KD was our Chief Historian. She always had the movie camera in hand doing her own version of a National Geographic documentary. I never knew until we got home, what some of the topics were. At several stops, I'd get out at the ranger station to gather info on the best things to see in a short amount of time. I had a really comfy shirt that I would wear a lot while doing the long drives, it was a very bold red and white stripes. So Kd would film me gesturing animatedly to some Bob the Ranger guy while KD's comment in that golf announcer's voice would be "Where's Waldo now"? Every time she got ready to start filming, she would yell at the back seat where Ben was, saying" don't say anything about your hm-hm, I'm turning on the camera!
As we got back into the RV to continue into Sedona, he complained again and asked if we could find a doctor's on duty kinda place. I said yeah yeah, not taking him all that seriously. We came around a bend in the road and it opened up into the most spectacular sight, equalled only to the scenic Grandeur of Yosemite. There were red rock spires and arches everywhere. It really looked like God's outdoor Cathedral. We decided that lunch was the first priority and then we would explore.
As I said in previous entries, Ben was turning 16 in a few days so we were doing a lot of things that
he wanted to do. He was going through an incredible growth spurt and along with sleeping half the time, and eating the other half, he had developed some interesting phobias that Summer. One of them was being afraid of flying bugs. Having grown up in the country, I had no idea where this one came from, but every time something bug-like would fly by, he'd go running off screaming like a girl, and he didn't care who saw him. We had decided on a Mexican restaurant for lunch and we pulled off the main road around to park in the back, which was just a dirt lot. As we started to get out ,Ben had opened the door right as a giant iridescent scarab beetle had decided to fly by. Ben was off! KD and I didn't even know what he'd seen, we were in hysterics watching my gangly son careening back and forth across the parking lot screaming at the top of his lungs. During one of his passes, the beetle decided to visit us in the van as we were waiting for Ben to finish his act and had rolled down the windows to watch. This was no cute little beetle, It was aprox. 2 to 3 inches long and as it flew, all of it's legs were waving in the air. Definitely creepy, but harmless, I think. So Ben realizing that the thing was no longer chasing him, came back just in time to see it buzz through the window towards me. I was saying something like whoooowhooah, KD was saying oohh pretty colors, and Ben took one look and was off screaming and running again. Well eventually we caught up with him and went to eat. Later, as we were looking for a place to camp, we missed the sign to the campground and was turning around when Ben said "hey mom, we're in an urgent care clinic parking lot. Can I get checked out?" I said really? You know with your luck, it'll be a female doctor. He answered "I don't care if it's a gynecologist, this is killing me!"
We walked up to the desk to a male receptionist and asked to be seen. He said" I hope you don't mind, that it's a female doctor?" I just started laughing and as Ben elbowed me in the ribs, the receptionist said to Ben "is she always this mean"?
He wouldn't go in without me, so I sat facing away from him in the exam room, the Dr. came in the door saying "don't be nervous, I've been doing sports physicals all day." Ben hesitantly asked "should I just take off my pants"? she replied "Yup just drop 'em for me' I was sitting there facing the other direction when she said wow that's really something!! I can't tell you how hard it was A) to be quiet and B) to keep my head turned after that comment! It turned out to be a painful but not dangerous blister thing that was probably caused from hiking in 110 degree heat for so long. She gave him a strong dose of antibiotics and we spent the night in a hotel to help him feel better. The next day we went on the wild e-ticket jeep ride called the "pink jeep tours" that takes you straight up sheer cliff faces and crawls all over the red rocks like some crazy Indiana Jones adventure.
He forgot all about the bugs and scary bumps!
A month later when we got home, we plugged the movie camera into the TV to show dad our adventure. Kd hadn't kept the tapes in order so it was just a fluke that the first one she grabbed was Sedona. The camera turned on to a blank screen, then a flash of the RV's front seat, and the immortal words:" Ben! don't talk about your penis, I'm filming!" Then click, the camera turned off. We were laughing so hard that it took about 15 minutes to explain the whole story to dad, but eventually we got back to the rest of the videos.
We were so tired of the dry boring drive! We'd heard that Sedona was an amazing place with all kinds of vortexes and spiritual powers. I was ready to see the beautiful rock formations and the kids wanted to take the jeep tour.
We'd been driving since very early morning across some really tedious terrain. We kept expecting to see those big red rocks but it had been flat forever and I was wondering if we were on the right road.
Suddenly, we started to curve down though a beautiful canyon with a vivid blue stream running right next to the road. We were eager to stop and cool off, so we took a hike along the stream called Oak Creek. The creek runs through a series of narrow walled canyons that are very much like a natural water slide. The kids really wanted to get in, but this wasn't to be as it was closed down due to an over-full out house that had leached bad stuff into the water. I was really glad that they were honest about that one! We had other worries without getting dysentery too.
We were on our third day of Ben complaining about a problem he was having in his nether regions. The poor guy was outnumbered by us girls telling him in turn, to either quit whining (KD) or to try this medicine or that ointment (me).He wasn't really sure about how to convey the details of his discomfort because it was in a very delicate lo-cal. While Ben has never been known to be shy, this time he felt totally abandoned by male support.
KD was our Chief Historian. She always had the movie camera in hand doing her own version of a National Geographic documentary. I never knew until we got home, what some of the topics were. At several stops, I'd get out at the ranger station to gather info on the best things to see in a short amount of time. I had a really comfy shirt that I would wear a lot while doing the long drives, it was a very bold red and white stripes. So Kd would film me gesturing animatedly to some Bob the Ranger guy while KD's comment in that golf announcer's voice would be "Where's Waldo now"? Every time she got ready to start filming, she would yell at the back seat where Ben was, saying" don't say anything about your hm-hm, I'm turning on the camera!
As we got back into the RV to continue into Sedona, he complained again and asked if we could find a doctor's on duty kinda place. I said yeah yeah, not taking him all that seriously. We came around a bend in the road and it opened up into the most spectacular sight, equalled only to the scenic Grandeur of Yosemite. There were red rock spires and arches everywhere. It really looked like God's outdoor Cathedral. We decided that lunch was the first priority and then we would explore.
As I said in previous entries, Ben was turning 16 in a few days so we were doing a lot of things that
he wanted to do. He was going through an incredible growth spurt and along with sleeping half the time, and eating the other half, he had developed some interesting phobias that Summer. One of them was being afraid of flying bugs. Having grown up in the country, I had no idea where this one came from, but every time something bug-like would fly by, he'd go running off screaming like a girl, and he didn't care who saw him. We had decided on a Mexican restaurant for lunch and we pulled off the main road around to park in the back, which was just a dirt lot. As we started to get out ,Ben had opened the door right as a giant iridescent scarab beetle had decided to fly by. Ben was off! KD and I didn't even know what he'd seen, we were in hysterics watching my gangly son careening back and forth across the parking lot screaming at the top of his lungs. During one of his passes, the beetle decided to visit us in the van as we were waiting for Ben to finish his act and had rolled down the windows to watch. This was no cute little beetle, It was aprox. 2 to 3 inches long and as it flew, all of it's legs were waving in the air. Definitely creepy, but harmless, I think. So Ben realizing that the thing was no longer chasing him, came back just in time to see it buzz through the window towards me. I was saying something like whoooowhooah, KD was saying oohh pretty colors, and Ben took one look and was off screaming and running again. Well eventually we caught up with him and went to eat. Later, as we were looking for a place to camp, we missed the sign to the campground and was turning around when Ben said "hey mom, we're in an urgent care clinic parking lot. Can I get checked out?" I said really? You know with your luck, it'll be a female doctor. He answered "I don't care if it's a gynecologist, this is killing me!"
We walked up to the desk to a male receptionist and asked to be seen. He said" I hope you don't mind, that it's a female doctor?" I just started laughing and as Ben elbowed me in the ribs, the receptionist said to Ben "is she always this mean"?
He wouldn't go in without me, so I sat facing away from him in the exam room, the Dr. came in the door saying "don't be nervous, I've been doing sports physicals all day." Ben hesitantly asked "should I just take off my pants"? she replied "Yup just drop 'em for me' I was sitting there facing the other direction when she said wow that's really something!! I can't tell you how hard it was A) to be quiet and B) to keep my head turned after that comment! It turned out to be a painful but not dangerous blister thing that was probably caused from hiking in 110 degree heat for so long. She gave him a strong dose of antibiotics and we spent the night in a hotel to help him feel better. The next day we went on the wild e-ticket jeep ride called the "pink jeep tours" that takes you straight up sheer cliff faces and crawls all over the red rocks like some crazy Indiana Jones adventure.
He forgot all about the bugs and scary bumps!
A month later when we got home, we plugged the movie camera into the TV to show dad our adventure. Kd hadn't kept the tapes in order so it was just a fluke that the first one she grabbed was Sedona. The camera turned on to a blank screen, then a flash of the RV's front seat, and the immortal words:" Ben! don't talk about your penis, I'm filming!" Then click, the camera turned off. We were laughing so hard that it took about 15 minutes to explain the whole story to dad, but eventually we got back to the rest of the videos.
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