First Day of Sedona Vacation

What a day!

Getting here has been a real trip. We were 30 minutes late departing Dayton because somehow someone got on the plane without being check through the gate. They had more people on the plane than had cleared through. They got that resolved and we left without further incident.

We got to Detroit and had a long walk to our connection. WE got loaded and took off. As we left the ground and the landing gear was being retracted, we hear a loud bang. Nothing was said until about 25 minutes when the pilot came on and said we had to go back because the landing gear would not retract. We finally got on our way about 2 hours late. Forgot to mention that when we were checking in at Dayton, you have to use the computer machines and check in yourself. We got all the way through to printing our receipts for the luggage and printing boarding passes when the machine gave us an error message and said call an attendant. There was a family five or six that the children had different names than the mother and father. They also were having problems and had to get in line at the desk for assistance. Unfortunately, we got in line behind them. We had already gotten the luggage tags and were waiting on the boarding pass. We probably were in line around 30 minutes and the family in front of us still had not resolved their problems. Another attendant came up and took our itinerary and came back with our boarding passes without any problems. Don't know why the first one could not get our passes.

We got Phoenix and took the bus to the car rental. We had reserved a Ford Explorer, but ended up with a Chrysler Pacifica which was ok. When checking the car, I noticed the tire low indicator light was on. I looked at the tires and they looked ok. I told the attendant and she said that I could return the car and get another or I could take the car and she would write on the form that the indicator light was on and I could bring it back if the tire went down. By this time it was 2 Phoenix time and 5 Dayton time. Linda and I had eaten lunch and were hungry so we took the car. We stopped about 3 miles out of Phoenix and had lunch and I checked all the tires. One was a little low so I aired it up. The light was still on and Linda said that on the Buick when this happened you had to reset the system to get the light to go off. I finally figured out how to reset the light and everything is fine now.

We went to Sedona for dinner and ate at the Sedona Bar and Grill. We shared a full rack of barbequed ribs. I had a locally brewed nut brown ale which was excellent. The ribs were also very good. It would be worth a trip back.

Tomorrow we will began the day with an orientation breakfast to learn about the things that are available in the local area. We know we will be going on a 4 hour train ride through Verde Canyon and a trip to the Grand Canyon. Other things to do will just happen. There is a lot to do in this area and I know we will enjoy every day of it.

I will post a slide show of today's events later. Monday Mar 30 update. Slide show is posted. I need to adjust the pictures some to show better. Most were taken through the car windows in bright sunlight so they are a little washed out. That will be a job for when I get home. Don't want to take too much vacation time to play with pictures.