People like to group together based on similar interests and we fell head first into a group called Car Campers. You’ve got the hippies, the tree huggers, the city clickers or yuppies, but now I can proudly say that Chad and I have joined a clan or the randos that also like to sleep in their cars.
Hot air balloons drifted across Sedona in the morning
We woke to see an assortment of cars and two campers in the U-shaped parking lot. Now in the light, the surrounding areas were the same as the terrain we were hiking the day before at Bell Rock. Large bushes, random grass clumps and occasional scrawny trees covered the rolling hills. In the middle of the parking lot there was a modern outhouse (that would have been good to know last night) and our neighbors were just starting to start their engines.
Example of one of the switch back roads
The weather is slowly getting warmer as we head south and the windows shine with water droplets instead of ice in the mornings. After wiping off the moisture, Chad and I snuck out of the parking lot. When passing the other cars, we peered into their cars to see what they had done for their sleeping arrangements. We were rewarded with the results and didn’t feel like total outcasts for sleeping in the car.
How car campers sleep in their car
Front seat style (Chad and Katie’s style)
Leaning front seats down and resting on the reclined chair huddled in blankets/pillows
Back seat style
Curling into a fetal position and sprawling out as much as possible on the back seat
Trunk style
Depending on the car, the owner lays back seats down or has removed them to create a flat sleeping surface. The occupant(s) would then stretch out and sleep with their gear surrounded by blankets/pillows
Later, we found a coffee shop to leech onto their Wi-Fi. A morning of blogging lead to almost a half day of blogging. Everyone and their mother was at the Sedona Starbucks which I assumed was the source of the slow internet Hey-o, dial up ring a bell? Chad and I spent 4 hours struggling with the cursed internet and we finally gave up and tethered his phone to my laptop to use his 4G. We could have had everything we needed to do done in 30 minutes with the speed of the new internet. We were so discouraged by the wasted time, we left to go find food for comfort.
According to David from the rock shop, a restaurant called Nick’s had the best corn beef hash he has ever eaten. Chad jumped on this suggestion and we ate it. I do agree with David, it was a pretty good corn beef hash accompanied by homemade hash browns.
A car problem
On Christmas Eve we had plowed through a snow storm to get back to Flagstaff, Arizona and Chad treated this drive like an off-road snow race. This is also where he concluded that he burnt out his left head light as they were “working extra hard” while snow surfing the terrible roads.
So, in Sedona we searched for an auto shop. Two heads bent over the engine messing with the bulb didn’t seem to help so Chad took over. Apparently, the previous owner of the car had replaced the entire light fixture and put it back in backwards. Chad couldn’t figure out how to extract the bulb and resorted to how-to YouTube videos which helped to realize the backwards structure. Bulb bought and replaced, Chad displayed a hearty egotistical demeanor for what seemed like forever. All in good fun of course and we both mocked each other. Congrats Chad, you changed a bulb haha.
Going to the Chapel
With reluctance, I was able to steer Chad towards the Chapel we had skipped the day before. There was even more people there today than the day before and Chad groaned the entire time while looking for a parking spot. His sarcasm and humor is a wonderful addition to anything we attempt and I appreciate the commentary. The chapel was small and unique as it sat on top of a rock structure.
There were tons of people weaving in and out of the chapel, but we noticed that no one stayed longer than 5 minutes. Obviously no one is really enjoying the result of their labors as it took over 10 minutes to park and another 10 to climb up the steep hill. Why only spend a short amount of time at your destination when you put so much time into it?
Shrimp for dinner
Chad and I were tired of going out to eat and our wallets didn’t appreciate the excessive use in Sedona. We walked around downtown, ate a small portion of fudge and walked into other spiritual stores on the strip. Hunger set in and we settled for a grocery store with the intention to find something simple and easy, like vegetables. Instead, we walked out with a bill that would have been the same as going out to eat and a bag of frozen cooked shrimp, 2 cucumbers, cocktail sauce and 2 one-gallon water jugs. So much for not exercising our wallets.
Chad used the time in the grocery store to call his family members and I used the car ride sleeping parking lot to catch up with my family. Meanwhile, the shrimp was defrosting on the heated leather seats of the car under my bottom. How else are they going to thaw? The heated body parts of the lower back, thighs and buttocks took shifts to prepare a thawed dinner.
Dinner was served back at our newly discovered campsite while we listened to our audio book, Outlander. The rest of the evening was held in suspense because of the storyline and we stayed up late listening to the story unfold. Who needs TV?
