Information Person: Where are you from?
Tourist: Philadelphia.
Information Person: Well, we don't have any cream
cheese factories here.
(Conversation I overheard at info booth)
Ah, Sedona. Gatlinburg for college graduates. Santa
Fe without Mexicans. I imagine that sometime, long
ago, the first gringos came to Sedona because it was
so beautiful, to paint, explore, whatever. But it has
turned into an obscenity. Psychic readings, crystals,
jeep tours and expensive schlock stores. Towering red
rock cliffs and mesas to which a guide will take you
to your own personal vortex, in the vernacular, that's
a particularly healthy spot on the earth's surface.
Getting down and personal with the environment while
driving an Escalade and wearing $600 crocodile skin
cowboy boots. Thankyou. I'm done now.
No. Wait. I'm not. The big controversy in Sedona is
between resident/owners of million dollar homes and
people who illegally rent their million dollar homes
to whichever riff-raff can pay the toll. The average
house price in Sedona is $600,000. Now I'm done.
I got into Sedona, elev. 5000 ft, in a driving
snowstorm. Started to drive higher up the mountain to
a national forest campground and had to turn around
because of the weather. Plunked myself down in a
little RV park in Sedona for $31 a night. Went for a
walk in town and got back to the Toaster very cold.
Drove 17 miles to a Walmart to find a heater. No go.
They've got their spring inventory on the shelves.
When I got back to the park, I discovered the trailer
across the way was from VT. Turns out the woman, Sue
Ellen and her husband live half the year in Weston and
half here. She does "body work" in both places.
Barbara Miles in Bristol was one of her bridesmaids.
(I was going to move into Barbara's apt. had I stayed
in VT.) And even better, Sue Ellen had a little
ceramic heater which she has loaned me for the night
and I am warm as can be now.
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