This past week Melissa and I took our first mini-vacation for the year to Arizona! This trip came together in little bits and pieces over a couple of months. I am amazed at how everything worked out.

Planning the Mini-Vacation to Arizona

This trip started with me. I have been thinking and talking about going to Arizona for a while now. There is this sourdough bakery that I have been following on youtube, called Proof Bread. They recently opened a storefront location in Mesa, Arizona and I have wanted to visit ever since I heard about it. Originally, we were going to try to make it my birthday trip in December. But with our travel to New Hampshire for Christmas, the timing didn’t work out.

However, in late December, Southwest was having a sale on their direct flights from Denver, and Phoenix was one of the destinations. We bought one way with points I had built up, and the other way was cheap with the sale. These flights were for President’s day weekend at the end of February. We figured the rest of the trip would come together after that.

In January we started thinking about where we were going to stay and what we were going to do. Going to the bakery was a top priority, but that was not going to be a three-day affair. We needed some other things to do too. While looking for other activities, we discovered Sedona, Arizona. This area has so much hiking to offer, exactly the kind of thing we love to do. After expanding our search for a place to stay, we found the converted wagon on Vrbo. We were sold. The last thing we had to do was rent a car and we were all set.

Adventures in Sedona

Our mini-vacation to Arizona started extremely early in the morning, we flew into Pheonix on a Sunday red-eye. After getting our car, we had lunch at this park a couple of minutes away from the airport. This park had a neat hike “hole in the rock” which was a great way to start our adventure. Also, Arizona has palm trees! I did not expect that. We then drove the two hours to Sedona to go on what we thought would be our first hike of the week. However, the trailhead was INSANE!

For a mile, on both sides of the road up and down, cars were stacked. The trailhead was packed and we were not feeling like we wanted to add an extra two miles to the hike and to deal with all of the people already there. We found another trailhead not too far away and did a short little hike there. Afterward, we checked into our wagon and did some groceries for the week.

Monday we knew we need to get to the trails earlier. We made breakfast and headed out and got there before 8 am. Devil’s bridge was our first hike of the day. The landscape in Sedona is stunning. We had amazing views the whole hike. Devil’s bridge is a crazy phenomenon. It looks more terrifying looking at it than it felt walking across it for the picture. Being early, we didn’t see too many people on the trail and did not have to wait long for a picture.

After Devil’s Bridge, we drove to our next hike, Soldiers Pass. This trail leads to another crazy phenomenon, a cave. This trailhead parking lot was tiny and we, unfortunately, had to park a mile away in overflow parking. We ate lunch in the parking lot and took some time to warm up in the car before heading out. To get into the cave at the end of the trail you had to climb up and into a narrow crevice. We were scaling rocks to get there and it was like nothing I had ever done before. I loved the whole experience.

On the way back, my feet and knees started killing me. I don’t know if it was the uneven terrain we were hiking on or the fact that I hadn’t walked that far in so long (we were well above eight miles at that point), but I was starting to become miserable. Melissa, being the amazing person she is went back to the car alone and picked me up on the road.

Back at the wagon, we made dinner for the night and also took a soak into the RV park’s hot tub. On Tuesday, we slept in. I wasn’t up for a lot of walking so we planned for a day mostly in the car. We drove down the Red Rock Scenic Byway. On the way, we stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Then we went into downtown Sedona and did some shopping. I picked up a hiking hat and sweatshirt, while melissa got a shirt and jacket. We ate lunch by the car, before making our next stop at the Airport Vortex. The wind here was unbearable, so we didn’t stay too long. We returned to the wagon for dinner, and the rest of the evening we spent starting to pack.

Bread and Pastries in Pheonix

Wednesday morning, we finished packing and checked out of the wagon. The drive back into Pheonix was snowy! The drive was otherwise uneventful and we made it to Proof Bread without any problems. It was amazing being inside the bakery! We couldn’t sit inside and watch them work, which made me sad, but we got a bag full of pastries. We enjoyed these in the car and planned out our next moves. I wanted to go thrifting, so we found a place on the way to our hotel. It was interesting seeing the different knick-knacks found in Pheonix versus other cities. I also did find some other clothing items and melissa found a little chick that started our easter/spring decorations. We killed some time in the parking lot before our check-in, then spent the rest of the night repacking for our flight and resting up. We caught another redeye on Thursday morning and were back in Denver around 8 and back to work by 10.

This mini-vacation to Arizona was so much fun! It was a taste of what I think the rest of my life is going to be like. Melissa and I both love to go to new places and have new experiences. We have made it a priority in our lives to continue to go on adventures and not let work-life stop us from doing what we love. If you liked the above pictures and want a bigger taste of our trip please enjoy the video below! Until next time 🙂