Finding Flagstaff
We are in Phoenix for a baseball tournament (I know, the worst place to be right now with the pandemic) and wanted to find something cool to do. I’ve always want to visit Flagstaff so yesterday, we took a little field trip to check it out.
I was craving some pine trees and mountains which is crazy to think that's available when you look around Phoenix. It’s nothing but cacti and rock. The occasional flowering bush scattered palm trees are nice but I’m a Taurus and raised in the midwest. This girl needs her green.
Flagstaff is about a two-hour drive north of Phoenix which felt like nothing because of the changing topography. I noticed there were a lot of off-shoots to check out along the way. Places like the Montezuma Castle National Monument or the resort town of Sedona. There’s also a popular hike just to the south and east of Flagstaff near Mormon Lake where you can see elk and other wildlife during this time of year. Not to mention the south rim of the Grand Canyon is just an hour north of Flagstaff.
But back to Flagstaff. The first thing we saw as we pulled into town was Northern Arizona University. We saw a little more of it on the way out of town and might be lobbying for my last child to give it a go. It’s a very cool campus with a big weird dome-y thing but cool, nonetheless.
Downtown Flagstaff is charming and quaint with its street trees, historic buildings, and storefront businesses. They have a local independently-owned bookstore (I bought this book and a journal), a gazillion coffee shops, a juicery, and historic hotels. It lies along the famous Route 66 highway and is much more than a rest stop.
We had heard about a hike near town that was great for viewing all the beautiful aspen trees. It is called the Inner Basin Trail and while it was lovely, it was a little busy for our taste and the dirt road to get there was as if we were off-roading. It was mostly a single lane that required one car to squeeze to the side of the road while the other eeked by. Scary as hell if you were the car at the edge of a long drop off! We went on a Thursday morning around 11:30 so I can’t imagine the foot traffic on a weekend. The reason for that is the foliage of the aspen trees is a sight to behold and there’s a small window of time to see them in all their glory before the leaves start to fall. We were probably a week too late but it was still gorgeous.
We loved Flagstaff and look forward to exploring it again someday. It’s worth the detour if not making it a destination.
