Sedona 4

We were all a little tired today and decided to stay in town.  We went to the Tlaquepaque Arts and Craft Village in the heart of Sedona and spent some time looking through the myriad of shops available.  This is not a typical set of shops . . they are all pretty upscale and mostly out of our league. It is fun to look at how the one percenters spend though.

Because this is Oscar day, we spent some time with a couple of characters that were available.  Cathy liked the “big hair” fella

and I went for the storyteller, go figure?

These shops are arranged in clusters, facing into central courtyards.

Cathy is about to enter a chapel that is used for weddings.  This “chapel is in the middle of these shops:

This is the interior of the small chapel:

Artwork ranged from fabulous to outrageous.  All upper price ranges could be accommodated.

A look at one of the courtyards.  I was in a Navajo rug shop when I took this (it was cold outside).  Authentic Navajo rugs were priced up to $25,000 for an 8′ x 10′.  A small, 2′ x 2′ rug could be bought for a little as $295.  We found out that it takes about 388 man-hours to produce an authentic 5′ x 7′ Navajo rug.

We decided to walk to another gallery that we went to last year. It is a block away, down this street.  There are pretty good views from anywhere in Sedona.  It was beginning to cloud up a little and a snowflake or two were coming down.

The gallery down the street had large pieces of artwork that ranged from the mid four figures, 500K for a large bronze bear and up to 1.2 million dollars for a marble eagle/man sculpture.  There was fantastic pieces available.  The background music in this venue was via Mark Levinson electronics (100K) and speakers that were about $150K each.  There was a young couple apparently picking out kitchen tiles for their home, at $115 to 135 per tile.

Looking down from the bridge on the way back to our car. Water was running clear and cold.  Slide Rock, a few miles upstream would have been great if it was a little warmer.

We stopped at the Circle K on the way back to camp and picked up some authentic tamales from a young hispanic street vendor, located between the propane tanks and the ice machine.  We tried these last year and a couple of weeks ago on our first visit this year (for the marathon) and they are excellent and they are the real deal.  Real tamales, frijoles and margaritas tonight!