The red rock formations of Sedona are stunning to behold, but there is much more depth to the rocks than meets the eye.  There are special spiritual vortexes that exist in Sedona.  These energy centers are located around Sedona, and can be more intense at the actual site of each vortex (4 main vortexes in Sedona) where a person may feel uplifted, inspired, or a strong positive sensation.

The above is Bell Rock, where the “balance” of masculine and feminine vortex is located.  I’m not sure if it was the vortexes I felt, but in a place so beautiful, how can you not feel good??

 
In the early summer of 1993 after graduating from university, my mom and I drove my little Honda Accord out to Los Angeles to start my first job.  Our drive out to LA was an adventure.  Remember when there were no safety nets like cell phones or the internet.  Driving across the country, you were on your own.  If you ran out of gas, you were walking to a gas station.  If your tire needed to be changed, you hoped a pay phone was nearby to call AAA.  Cross-country travel was still considered dauting and exciting.
Aside from sleeping at night, my mom and I drove straight from Michigan to California with the exception of making one stop– at the Grand Canyon.  The allure of the Grand Canyon took us off the highway, turning us into tourists, if not for just one hour.  That was the first and only time my mom and I ever did anything so adventurous, just the two of us.  It was a fun trip.  Thanks mom.

When I get home to Philadelphia, I’m going to see if I can find the photo that was taken in 1993 with my mom and I (rather than Mike and I, as above) standing in the exact same place in front of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Before we officially set off for our camping adventure, we stopped off in Fort Collins, Colorado to visit with my brother’s family.  It was filled with non-stop activities that Kyra and Aiden are involved in…swim meets, tennis practice, soccer games and baseball games.  The week culminated with a pinata party, as Kyra also turned 8 years old and celebrated with 10 of her closest girlfriends.

We wrapped up our visit with family by camping in the Poudre River at the Big South campsite, a small campground, about two hours northwest of Ft. Collins.  The Big South is situated between the Cache La Poudre River on one side, and the main road on the other.  Eventhough camping road-side doesn’t sound appealing, this campsite still offers a good amount of privacy once it got dark.

Eleven of the 12 species of sea turtles can be found in the waters just south of Puerto Escondido.  Nesting season is between July - September, which means mating season is around that same window of time.  We hired a boat to take us dolphin and sea turtle watching, and snorkeling.  What we didn’t realize is that we would be intruding on the sea turtles mating.  We saw a ton of turtles, and pretty much all of the turtles we saw were in the process of mating.  Many were shy, and once they spotted the boat, “disengaged” and swam away.  But there was one couple who didn’t seem to mind when we got in the water to swim with them.

Dolphins road along side the boat for a while, and off in the distance we saw a giant sailfish jump out of the water and spread its top fin.

Reading history section of each country in our guide book can sometimes be boring.  And I will admit, I have been known to skip it entirely.  But the one part of the travel guide that I never skip is the food chapter.  Mostly I highlight and take notes on what I’d like to try while in said country.  For Mexico, I actually made a list of things not to eat.  I wrote down the Spanish name so I wouldn’t order it by mistake.  My list was chapulines (grasshoppers), gusanos (worms), huitlacoche (black fungus grown on corn).  Seems easy enough to avoid…

Oaxaca is known for its culinary traditions, and I wanted to learn more about it.  So I signed us up for two different classes.  Our first class was with Pilar at La Casa de los Sabores.  Before we started cooking we headed to Mercado Democracia to buy our fresh ingredients…mangos and watercress for our salad, yerbasanta leaves, corn husks, banana leaves, squash blossoms, huitlacoche, and corn masa to make tamales.

Going to the market is one of my favorite things.  I love to look at local fruits and vegetables, the cheeses and meats.  But going to the market with an expert like Pilar makes the experience even better.  It also makes it easier to taste foods you may normally not eat–after all if the chef is eating it, it can’t be that bad.  Pilar seemed pretty excited that chapuline/ grasshopper season had just started.  Grasshoppers are sold in a variety of sizes, but the baby ones are the freshest and taste the beat.  The grasshoppers are boiled then mixed in a salty concoction and eaten like any other snack, by the handful.  To me, it tasted like dried salted shrimp, kind of like smelly fish.

After our market experience, we headed back to the kitchen to get working on our menu–a fresh jicama/mango watercress salad, three types of tamales, spicy salsa, and a mango mousse.  There were eight of us in the class, and we worked as a group on each of the courses.  The tamales were chicken with black mole, bean with yerbasanta leaf, and squash blossom with huitlacoche (black fungus).  I love mushrooms, but I was weary of the corn fungus.  But mixed into our corn tamales, it was actually hard to detect much of a taste.

Lastly, we made spicy salsa with gusano worms crushed in for added flavor.  It turns out Mexicans have a long history of eating insects, mostly because they did not have many domesticated animals, so as an alternate source of protein they ate insects.  The gusano worm is the same worm found at the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal.  They are white, pinkish or red in color.  We ground up the worms in a mortar and pestle along with the rest of the ingredients for the salsa.  I can’t exactly describe the flavor of the worms–smokey?? But I didn’t like the flavor of the salsa.  Maybe it was because I knew there were worms in it.

I fully enjoyed learning to cook from Pilar, it was a great experience.  Somehow she had my secret list of things not to eat, and I tried them all.  When in Rome…

For work I have been to Paris more than a dozen times, and although I love shopping in Paris, I’ve never had the typical love affair with France that so many of my co-workers developed. So, it took me completely off guard to find the Provence region in France so enjoyable. We toured the Provence region stretching from Marseille to the Cote d’ Azur and Monoco. I’ve heard the rest of France is nothing like Paris, and now I believe it. The people are so incredibly nice, and it’s beautiful and peaceful in the country. We went to a weekend flea market in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, stayed amidst rolling vineyards at Chateau Juvenal (a restored home, now a B&B), tasted wine in Chateauneuf du Pape, visited many other Chateaux, Roman ruins, and the homes of Renoir and Van Gogh. All in all it was beautiful.

So beautiful that when we arrived in the Cote d’Azur to visit Nice, Monaco and Cannes, I really wanted to escape back to the sleepy countryside we just left. Besides the beaches and a few museums there isn’t too much to do, except shop. AND, I do have to admit, while walking along Rue d’Antibes in Cannes, I momentarily forgot myself in the haziness of shopping. I felt the urge to go into every single boutique and scour it for anything “new”. I probably would have except for two things; Mike waiting around (although I did suggest he  take a boat ride “somewhere”), and the fact that I can not fit anything else into my luggage. The Cote d’Azur is extremely beautiful and although the beaches live up to its namesake, I was happy when we retreated back into an old walled-city called Cagnes-Sur-Mer. As for France, I can see why people love it so much.

We sucessfully entered Cagnes Sur Mer, a fortified walled village in the area surrounding Nice. Granated, there were no closing hours, tickets, lines or any other barriers to entry, but still. This is our home for the next 3 days. Not the place pictured above… that is the center point of the village, a chateau once owned by the Grimaldi family, who turns out were once a big deal in these parts. Our place is down a bunch of narrow curved streets. It’s like a little Hobbit village. Its also the town where Renoir spent his final years and we went to see his studio.

Culinary contributions from Nice include the Nicoise salad, ratatouille, and socca. I had no idea what socca was before arriving in Nice. Walking around the city though, its pretty hard to miss as it is printed on many restaurant awnings advertising it. To me it sounded like an interesting drink I should try. Maybe because it sounds so much like “so-co” ( southern comfort). Turns out it is basically chick peas pureed with olive oil and baked in an oven or fried. It’s actually pretty good– kind of like a pancake or a crepe mashed up on your plate. And for 2 euro 50 cents it’s the cheapest thing you can buy in the Cote d’Azur.

We stayed a few nights in the wine country of Provence at a chateau turned bed & breakfast called Chateau Juvenal. It was run by a French couple who retired here to run it and make wine from their vineyard. Sounds like a plan.

Vincent Van Gogh spent his final years in this little town called Arles. There’s lots of scenes around town that he painted, like the one above, the Langlois Bridge. Looks just like it, right? We had this lovely view all to ourselves and got to enjoy art in real life without another tourist in sight. How did we get so lucky? Well, the tourist office gives you a nice little map of town that includes all the Roman ruins as well as the Van Gogh sites that looks like this:

The inset map is located right below it:

I cropped some things out but it is very clear that the bottom map is a blowup of one of the main areas of the bigger map. So we arelooking for #38, Van Gogh’s bridge. Should be in the North right? Let’s drive on N570 towards Avignon just like the map tells us. Lets drive around, and around and around until someone tells us….no Van Gogh’s Bridge is in the south. Excuse moi Monseiur, this map clearly shows it is located in the North. “Oh no, can’t you see, they didn’t have room for #38 and #39 on the big map, so rather than placing them geographically where they belong, they decided to pretend like that section of the little map was still part of the big map and just overlay it like it was still in the south of the big map even though it now really appears to be in the north of the little map. That little pink arrow obviously indicates that those sites are meant to be in the map above. Makes sense, no?” You have to be kidding me.

We spent the next half hour discussing the logic behind the decision to make the map this way, convinced that we couldn’t be the first people to see the absurdity in it until we finally found the bridge. Not another soul in sight. I guess they were all up North driving around, and around, and around.

Everywhere you look in Provence there is cool stuff to see. All within a few hours drive there are Roman ampitheaters and aqueducts…

Hilltop forts and abbayes from the Middle Ages…

And former palaces of the French Popes.

In what seems to be becoming a theme, today we were shut out of yet another fortress. This time it was Chateau D’If in Marseille, France, the setting for the “Count of Monte Cristo.” Apparently it was too windy to sail there. Not sure I agree with them.