A quiet retreat

I hope everyone likes rocks. Big red ones. Sandstone outcroppings. That's the backdrop to every direction you turn your head. Unless you keep your head down and look at what's immediately around you in L'Auberge de Sedona.  Quiet cosy cottages with wood burning fires and neighbors who don't make a sound as they are relaxing.

It's the kind of place to get away from it all (in our case Chicago) and take it easy.
 On our second visit which I have learned was as late as 2004 (not 1998 as I thought-where does the time go??!) we met the tour manager from Fleetwood Mac who was spending a couple of days there.
He invited us to his cottage for a drink and we learned that Stevie Nicks has often come to the hotel and rented a cottage or two for the purposes of writing songs in a place where she can hear herself think. Makes sense.

The creek that runs by our cottage is home to many ducks.

Unseen are some wooden Adirondack chairs so you can sit by the water's edge and "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream" (a quote from my favorite Beatles song Tomorrow Never Knows)

The long shadows of morning...

For breakfast we could either have room service delivery or go to the waterside restaurant or take this little funicular railway car up to street level and dine outdoors at a cafe. Breakfast burritos were a favorite with lots of spicy chorizo.

That's the hotel part up above at street level

At the top the funicular let's you off to wander

The view on a sunny morning

This was back in the days before I began photographing every meal and restaurant we set foot in so there are no photos of food, even though we ate well there, on basic food. Sigh. It's not a culinary capital of the world though so you are maybe not missing much. It doesn't have the restaurants of Santa Fe or San Francisco to name but two great places for dining.

We'll visit Santa Fe at some point in the near future....another one of a kind town.