Roadtrip

Friday afternoon with two Halloween costumes in hand Greg and I got in his truck and started driving from Irvine, CA.  No agenda, and no maps so it would make sense that the first detour was a big flashing highway sign that said “festival detour this way”.  Careful following random flashing signs - we ended up at Phish Fest in middle of nowhere California - the hippie epicenter of the world.  That evening we found ourselves sleeping in an Arizona canyon miles from humanity - I wish I could describe to you those stars and the intensity of sleeping with anticipation of being woken up by unbeknownst man or creature.

Saturday morning was Sedona or bust, and Greg missed the Sedona.  We wound up in Flagstaff - a perfect mistake.   Had breakfast at The Crown Railroad Café (yes model trains ran in circles all over the restaurant). We rented mountain bikes and raced up and down mountains at 10,000 feet, we wrapped up that adventure and hauled the bikes down to Sedona where we enjoyed Slide Rock state park, climbed to the top of Bell Rock, and kicked up some Red clay.

Let’s not forget it was Halloween and compliments of one of those “free” local newspapers, I can’t resist reading, I discovered a Halloween bicycle scavenger hunt.  We showed up at the local bike establishment to a solid crowd of 70+ people.  Greg and I teamed up with two bike shop employees, the guy in the hot dog costume, and the guy called “faust”.  This crew embodied Flagstaff hospitality and we found ourselves going door to door collecting the 50 most random items one could put on a scavenger list.

Fittingly the event was sponsored by New Belgium Brewery “fat tire ale.”  Any neighbor that didn’t have one of the items seemed to have a Coors so everyone went home happy.

We went home not only happy but victorious - to Greg, Faust and the guy in the full body hot dog costume – second place and bragging rights for a year.