I promised myself last summer that this year I was going to escape the Phoenix heat this year. A week in San Diego in July helped, but with 10 hours of driving there and back, navigating I-5 and local streets it wasn’t all restful.
This month we got away to Flagstaff, only 2 hours driving each way, to familiar surrounding and cool mountain air (7,00 feet elevation). We stayed at the Drury Inn for the first time, recommended by our son and daughters. Very nice surroundings on the edge of NAU’s campus. Great breakfast buffet and an evening social with drinks and snacks (actually enough for a meal if you aren’t real hungry).The rooms are clean, typical hotel style with new furniture and décor. Good size bathrooms are a plus. Friendly staff and good service.
This was supposed to be a getaway, relaxing, break-the-routine kind to time, and it mostly was. We drove up Sunday morning and went to the Museum of Northern Arizona Museum for the Navajo Festival. Bev has always wanted to go and this was our first time. Great experience seeing the Navajo Culture firsthand. There were vendors of course, jewelry, carvings, blankets, art and food. But the best part was the seeing and hearing about Navajo culture. The Pollen Trail Dancers performed including hoop dances. The director narrated and explained the meanings and history of each dance and played the drum and sang as they performed. Very impressive as they were mostly young people.
A Navajo woman, Rodmilla Cody, with a beautiful voice and sense of humor sang songs in Navajo. Sitting in the pines listening to her was peaceful and relaxing. The whole experience gave me an appreciation of the Navajo and their culture.
Monday we went browsing at the Barnes and Noble bookstore. Bev worked on her genealogy project and I browsed. I just had to drive up to the Lowell Observatory and glad I did. We got there at 1 pm, just in time for the “Mars” tour. The guide was an NAU science student and he had a large amount of info about Mar, Percival Lowell and the observatory I hadn’t heard before and I thought I knew a lot. We finished the tour at the Clark telescope that was constructed over a hundred years ago. He had done his research and knew about the history of the scope and the dome it is housed in. He brought us up to the present with info about the reflecting Discovery Channel Telescope that is almost complete near Happy Jack and the Nasa/Navy research area 14 miles away. We came back for the evening tour and peered through four telescopes that were set up and enjoyed the crowd and the weather.
Tuesday we walked around campus and picked up few things at the bookstore. A lot of new buildings have sprung up since we were here just a few years ago and more are under construction. Getting to be an impressive campus.
