Last Few Days in Arizona

Saturday October 18, 2014 Flagstaff
After the complimentary hotel breakfast, we drove up to the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Sunset Crater erupted sometime between 1040 and 1100. There are many other volcanic mountains in the area but this is the most recent.

 Climbing Sunset Crater itself is no longer allowed but there are other older, smaller volcanoes covered in cinders that we could hike up.

 The black lava flows are still mostly barren rock.

 Rugged landscape.

 There are some huge fields of lava flow and cinders. We had a good day of walking around the Sunset Crater area before we drove back to Flagstaff for the night. The next morning, we packed up and drove south along the highway toward the Sedona area. On the way to our motel in Oak Canyon southeast of Sedona, we stopped to hike around Bell Rock.

 Bell Rock is a well-known hiking area with a circular trail that goes all the way around it. We took a snack and water in a backpack and hiked around the whole thing, which took 2 or 3 hours.

 There's a bit more vegetation in the Sedona area and lots of great scenery.

The hike through the red sandstone desert was very beautiful. It's no wonder that Sedona is a famous travel destination.
That night we ate dinner at a restaurant near our motel. The next morning we drove back to Phoenix, dropped off our car at the airport car rental depot and took a shuttle from there to Sky Harbor Airport. From there we were able to get a hotel shuttle back to the same hotel where we had stayed on our arrival.
Early the next morning we flew from Phoenix to Chicago. Naturally, our scheduled flight from Chicago to Montreal was delayed, meaning that we would miss our connection from Montreal to Ottawa. At the United Airlines courtesy desk, we managed to get a flight directly from Chicago to Ottawa so, in fact, we ended up in Ottawa 15 minutes earlier than originally scheduled. And our luggage arrived with us. All good.
That night we stayed at the Days Inn in Ottawa. The next morning we drove home. Another adventure complete!