It’s a long long way… not just to Tipperary but also from Austin Texas to Sedona Arizona. Just a smidgeon short of 1,200 miles actually, so one of those weekends with dawn to dusk driving.

Our route took us due west through Texas, past El Paso (one of the confirmed worst virus-infected places in the whole US – do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect COVID), skirted through New Mexico (which had strict quarantining rules, no stopping there either) and up through Arizona. We did call in at a Walmart en route though to jazz up our home on wheels with some festive lighting and decorations. This was our tree:

Give me a long open road and Chris Rea’s delightful crooning of Driving Home for Christmas and I’m in my happy place 😊
Fleeting images of the weekend road trip. The wigwam was at the rest area we just made it to before nightfall.

It is quite beyond me that somehow when someone was making areas of natural beauty into protected National Parks, they accidentally forgot to include Sedona on the list. Maybe they left it too late as someone else had already plonked a town into the midst of all that red rock loveliness. For our purposes, the town of Sedona worked out well to spend a few days in the run up to Christmas, camping, working and walking.

It’s not the size that matters with a tiny office, just check out THAT view
With an early morning hike, the rock vista is revealed in glorious multicolor ever so gradually by the sun magician

Bring on Christmas Eve and a big shout out to both our employers who generously gave us the day off, yay. It was time to Get Into Christmas… 🎶

Partaking of the local Christmas lights has gotta be done to get you in the mood

The ceremonious wrapping of presents didn’t take long. There were but two, and with no wrapping paper to hand, I found aluminium* foil did the trick just perfectly.

* Sorry – I accept most US autocorrects. I’m over the zees and zeds and I forgive the loss of u’s where they should be included. But aluminium will forever be aluminium and I will not defer to the monstrosity that is aluminum.

Between me and Walmart, I think we nailed the mood lighting in the BaseCamp

But for Christmas itself, it was time to move on from Sedona town to Sedona middle of nowhereness. No kidding, it’s actually called Secret Mountain Wilderness. Slow going along washboard gravel roads with the Basecamp but if you want to get away from it all, no pain, no gain.

We bagged a remote plateau boondocking spot with a red rock backdrop that belonged on a film set. For us, Christmas perfection. A picture speaks a thousand words, a thousand pictures even more 😆. Peace & solitude, vistas & vortexes, champers & corn hole…

Of course, it wasn’t long before Darren got the drone out.

In case you’re wondering about those aluminium foil-wrapped Christmas presents…

Just the cutest little his and hers can cozies ever
Check out the mouse eating the muffin rock. Once you see it, you can’t unsee!

In true Boxing Day style, you gotta work off those Christmas calories right? Off we went up Doe Mountain, for some of the best views around.

Time to up the ante with an off-road experience in a monster truck. We hired THIS:

A cool way to get even more off the beaten track

Christmas Day is probably the only day in the year the pink jeep vortex tours don’t descend on our camping spot at sunset for their “spiritual awakening”. All other days, you can expect this:

Although they may have been a bit distracted by the wafting aromas from our juicy steak on the bbq

Fortunately, they didn’t hang around for long and once again we had the place to ourselves to enjoy the last dying rays of the sun as it transformed our surroundings into a glowing red rock arena.

National Park or no National Park (WTF, it’s not even a National Monument?), Sedona is right up there for me with other NP hard hitters, winning the most underrated destination award. That said, next up, one of the biggest hitters of them all: Grand Canyon National Park.