SEDONA

About a dozen years ago, I had the opportunity to take a weekend all expense paid trip to Sedona. Sedona was at the top of my list of places I would like to visit in this country. I waasn't sure i could. Fear of flying is one of my serious issues. When I was 19, I flew from Kansas City to Washington, DC, on one of Howard Hughes' TWA prop planes. The weather was very windy and we bounced down to Washington National like bumping on your bottom from step to step on stairs. On my return trip, it was very cold and we had to wait to be deiced. A woman in gypsy clothing got up and started screaming "Let me off--this plane will crash." Well, that just wasn't much fun. They subdued her but she went off again so they got her off the plane. At Chicago's Midway, there was serious fog, so bad that we had to circle around for a while. We could see planes circling above us and some circling below. Every so often a plane would come shooting up through the fog. As we finally landed, we just missed skimming the top of a chain link fence at the end of the runway. When we took off, we were one of the planes shooting up through the fog. I said, "God, get me out of this and I won't do it again!" I didn't, until Sedona. The reason for the trip was for my boss, Joyce and me to give a presentation at a retreat for State Farm agents at a community college in Prescott, AZ. Joyce can see auras, including those of planes. So I made peace with God, since I knew making bargains with Him was not the right thing to do. I craved chicken wings so ate them daily from The Colonel for a month. Joyce approved the aura, I self hypnotized, drank a glass of wine and traveled half out of it, 1/4 drunk and 1/4 sick to my stomach. The plane shook and made noises as we landed. Joyce must have noticed I was about to panic because she said "wasn't that a smooth landing" and I said "Thank God, I thought we crashed." Prescott was wonderful. I wore Joyce out (she is 5 years younger than I) looking for a wedding gift for a close personal friend of both of ours. The next day we headed for Sedona by way of Jasper the old mining town on the mountain side with a restaurant that featured yummy strawberry pie. Then the hairpin turns to end all hairpin turns down the mountain. Joyce decided we needed water since we were going across the desert so she stopped at the only building there, an old saloon. I waited and waited and finally she came out with an old bottle of pepsi. That's all they had other than beer. We got to Sedona and checked in. Joyce wanted to go to dinner and I could not move or stay awake. When they tell you there are energy vortexes there, believe. We arranged for a jeep trip the next day which was wonderful. We had the first appointment in the AM and were the only tourists our guide had. He took us on a mountain and we sat on the edge of a canyon while he played his flute and the wind whistled in circles around the canyon. Joyce asked why it did that and he said he didn't know, that it never had before. I knew why. It knew me and I knew it. Our spirits were aligned. We walked a medicine wheel. We ate leaves from a bush our guide gave us to atune us to the area. I knew he was trustworthy. Then we shopped all afternoon, met a psychic cat, and found the perfect piece of pottery for our friend. On our way back we saw the cave homes of early natives and had perfect flights.