Tuesday 13th September 2016

A 6.30am start today, with the taxi picking us up at 7.15am to go to Manchester airport. Unfortunately we had to avoid the motorway because of a 90 minute delay caused by a pile up but we still arrived an hour late, at 9am. Luckily the plane was also delayed by an hour so we still had plenty of time for breakfast in the business class lounge. We were a little worried that we might be rushed with our connection at Washington Dulles for Phoenix but we actually had enough time to sit in the lounge for half an hour! We picked up our bags and the hire car without difficulty and the sat nav took us sucessfully to the Best Western airport hotel, only about 3 miles away. It was getting on for 10 pm so we just went to bed as we had been travelling for over 33 hours!

Wednesday 14th September

We had a leisurely morning, having breakfast around 9.30am and then leaving around 11am to drive to a department store to pick up a Sim card and water (and a couple of bottles of wine) as well as a belt for Iain (left by mistake at the security check in Manchester). Iain is getting used to driving and I am going to have a go tomorrow. The countryside was very arid  and we crossed over some impressive hills at 4000ft before arriving in Sedona where there are wonderfully coloured hills around with strata of red between the paler colours. The Casa Sedona where we are staying for 2 nights is a lovely place and we were able to get our room early at 2pm so we had a relaxiing afternoon playing boggle on the roof terrace and utilising the spa bath in our room! We are eating here tonight for convenience although it is quite expensive; tomorrow we might go into town.