The End of a Long Love Affair . . . Or Not ~ Westbrook RV Travel Log

It was a late September day in 1991 when I first saw her. Her beauty was boundless and I was immediately captivated. I was in town for a jazz festival with my wife, as we were about to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary with a hike into the Grand Canyon a few days later. But there she was - the town of Sedona, AZ. I couldn’t believe people were allowed to live here - as if people were allowed to live in a national park. The layers of rock color, the green of the juniper trees, the deep blue sky, and the trickle of Oak Creek. I was captivated.

I thought about the town many times, and we came through on vacation a time or two over the years. In 2009, I began to think about possible future retirement locations. The Sedona prices had gone nuts in 2007 and 2008, but the real estate market crash was starting to bring prices back down to reasonable levels. I booked a flight and came out to look around. We would come out twice a year for the next decade and hike the many trails and look at land parcels. I made offers on a few over the years, and several times my offers were accepted. Each time, I would find something during the discovery phase that caused me to back out. It had to be the perfect parcel at the perfect price, and we were in no rush.

I liked that the town was surrounded by national forest, so the growth was bounded. They are a dark sky friendly town. The population is around 10,000 people, and the large number of visitors meant that the town had more grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment options than most towns of that modest size. The climate was good at about 4,400 feet in elevation - not too hot or too cold. And it was beautiful in every direction I looked.

The more I studied the town and the workings, the more concerned I became. The place seemed to be run by the Chamber of Commerce. Everything was designed to bring more tourists (money), which meant traffic and infrastructure woes. However, the city had a ban on short term rentals to try and make sure it was a town of people who owned, lived there, and were active in the community. Then, in 2016 the Republican led state government passed a law over-ridding the ability for local jurisdictions to regular short term rentals across the state. Sedona started seeing investors pouring in to make a buck. Once quiet neighborhoods now had short term renter traffic. A sense of community was being lost. Then investors started buying lots and building massive houses just to rent out many rooms. Local people who worked there could no longer find a place to live - they have to commute to towns 20 miles away. Greed was destroying the beauty and charm, as seems to be the case so often anymore.

We made our final trip out in October 2019 and decided another paradise had been lost. I tried to quit dreaming of buying land and building a sustainable home here. I told Elena once that looking at some difficult build lots in Sedona is like looking at a gorgeous woman who you know is going to be nothing but trouble, but not being able to look away for long. Prices started going even crazier during the pandemic and land was flipping in months for double the money - just like during the crazy times of 2007. That helped blunt my enthusiasm a bit.

The other challenge is that we have such a nice setup in Fairview, TX. We have 2.2 acres of native woods with our house hidden in the middle. We have some of the kindest, nicest neighbors you could ever want. Not only that, but we have plenty of elbow room on our street, but are only a few miles from almost any amenity you could want. It would be easier to make the move if we lived in a regular old house on a regular old street, or in a decaying area. Our current bar is set very high.

We hadn’t planned to come to Sedona on our current road trip, but both caching COVID made us scale back on some other big hikes we had planned. Elena suggested we route through Sedona for a couple of days. The things we loved are still there - the rocks, the forest, the creek, the dark skies, the climate. But the trailheads were overloaded with cars and traffic was slow in every direction. We noted, as before, there seems to be a few distinct tourist categories here. One is the nature lovers like us who come, hike, and try to leave no trace. We meet a lot of people out on the trails who are similar - both local people and visitors. There is another group who spends most of their time shopping in the stores and galleries, or eating at the high-end restaurants. There is another trendy group who are out striking the same Instagram pose along every trail and overlook. Then there are the people who come to a quiet, beautiful place and seem to say, “What’s the best way to destroy this?” They rent the loud ATVs and drive them all over, or jump in one of the many Jeep tours and mark the red rocks black from their tires and belch fumes and noise into the air.

I find myself looking at lots again and dreaming of a little sustainable solar home with great views and easy access to hiking trails. This morning we found three trails that are beautiful, but not very crowded. Bebop really enjoyed hiking, despite the low count of trailside lizards. We drove past some trailheads with over a hundred cars spilling out to park along the roadway. Out on the trails, we remembered all the things we love here. Elena was busy looking up geology on her Rockd app. We noticed that the gem and mineral show was at the Sedona High School, so we dropped Elena off there for a while. On our way back to our campground, it took us about 30 minutes to drive 1.5 miles in the heavy traffic. It’s a town of major pluses and major minuses. It’s fun to dream, but it’s also nice to return home to the wonderful reality we already have. Will we end up here someday? That is unanswerable at this time. Here are a few photos from today before the rain moved in. You would have to try really hard to take a bad photo here.