Day three take us from Amarillo, TX to Sedona, AZ by way of New Mexico!

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Our day started around 8AM, I think…  To be honest, we were really turned-around on the time considering that at some point we crossed into a new time zone, and then we crossed a state line that doesn’t observe daylight savings time.  Which made it really hard to judge our progress.  But whatever; the sky was blue and the only thing we ultimately needed to know was that we were headed west.

I think we ended up getting on the road about 2 hours earlier than we needed to, but somewhere in the middle we knew we had to eat lunch.  We had a hankering for BBQ, and Lea found an awesome spot in Albuquerque on Yelp –  Rudy’s “Country Store” and Bar-B-Q!  This place really was the real deal.  Complete with red checkered tablecloths, sweet tea, sauce by the gallon and paper towel dispensers at the end of each family-style picnic table.

The way it works is you order your meat by the lb (I think that’s French for pound), which they slice to order, and then they give you bread to make it into a sandwich.  By 11:30AM, local time, they were already sold out of the pulled pork!  They’re other best sellers are the brisket and turkey.

They have scales right at the register to weigh your lunch.  Oh, and feel free to ask for free samples!

We brought one of these pups home with us.

Back on the road, we were absofruitly stuffed, and looking forward to some more of this beautiful, open landscape.

The terrain started to change a bit as we crossed over into Arizona.

Follow the signs to Flagstaff!

I had heard that there was skiing in Flagstaff, but I never pictured all the pine trees!  My only experience in AZ had been in Phoenix and Yuma, which aren’t particularly well-known for their greenery.  More like brownery.

The landscape in these parts changes so dramatically, so rapidly, the famous red rocks of Sedona are just 23 miles south of Flagstaff, and when they do appear, they seem to jump out of the earth from nowhere.

Oh!  And here’s some proof that Lea actually logged a few miles on this trip.

Ah yes, our first glimpse of the red rocks.

We rolled into Sedona with enough time to beautify ourselves and drive up to a lookout to watch the sunset before dinner.

Lea actually had the top half of her body out the sunroof for this one.  Not to worry, though.  I kept it under 50…

I haven’t mentioned it, but we worked in a little extra time to spend in Sedona to celebrate our second wedding anniversary!  As such, we had a table reserved at Dahl & Di Luca, Sedona’s most romantic restaurant.  😉

Lea ordered the Linguine Paradiso – Homemade linguine pasta with a portabello mushroom ragu and a dollop of Chevre.  Totally, completely, utterly delectable.

I had to take a picture of these “golden arches.”  Sedona has a strict policy on “light pollution” due to the local observatory.  It makes for some fantastic skies, bursting with stars.  Unfortunately, I don’t know how to take pictures of stars.  It’s weird.  But at least I got this!

 

That’s it for tonight.  Gotta get some z’s for tomorrow morning’s hike.

 

Cheers!