Where’s Nico?

Well, I still haven’t used “On the Road Again”, but I did go with one of Willie’s signature songs this time and a staple from pretty much all his live shows. “Angel” was from Willie’s 1980 movie, Honeysuckle Rose. Why did I choose this song, you ask? Well, I guess I’d respond by asking you to hold your horses, big fella! First, we gotta settle the main question…. Where’s Nico???

Coconino National Forest!

If Coconino National Forest sounds familiar to you, it could be due to the fact that I’ve posted about this place before. When we came here last time, it was in late April. It’s been interesting to see it in early February. As I’ve mentioned before, Nico’s not a huge fan of high temps, and he did struggle a bit with the heat when we came out here in April 2024. This time, the temps are way more in his wheelhouse. Where we are camping, a bit south and east of Sedona, the highs have been in the low-to-mid 70’s. But when we head to some of the trails on the north side of Sedona, in much higher elevations, we’ve seen a bit of snow and ice.

Well, not Jack-Nicholson-freezing-solid-while-trying-to-hack-you-into-pieces type snow and ice, but there were a few little spots of the white stuff.

Glad you approve, Jack Nicholson! One of our all-time favorite trails is a hike referred to in AllTrails as “West Fork of Oak Creek Trail #108”. It’s a beautiful trail that follows Oak Creek as it winds around between beautiful red cliffs on either side. Nico absolutely loved the hike, smiling almost the whole way and bursting into sprints throughout. It’s about a mile above sea level, so as I mentioned in the last paragraph, we saw a few spots of snow and ice as we traversed it.

When we hiked this trail in April 2024, the water was warm enough that, at the turnaround point of the out-and-back trail, we just kept hiking forward through the creek, which was often a couple of feet deep. That wasn’t really an option for us this time, as the water was quite a bit colder, but we still had a wonderful time on the seven and a half mile route and Nico was just in a state of bliss the whole time.

This may surprise you, but I happened to catch a couple of photos of the hike. Will I share them with you? Well, since you asked so nicely, how can I refuse?

In fact, we enjoyed the hike so much that we did it a second time just the other day!

There’s so much out in this area that is beautiful. Personally, I’m not all that interested in the city of Sedona – I know a lot of folks love it, and there’s a ton of art there and fancy restaurants and all, which is great for those interested, but our jam is much more focused on getting out to nature, not driving through a tourist town packed with roundabouts and yuppie spas trying to heal your chakras. And you don’t have to go far at all around Sedona to catch an amazing potpourri of nature all around you.

One trail we did this week that we hadn’t done on previous trips is the Transept Trail. It’s an out-and-back trail that’s a bit under seven miles, and it mainly involves hiking along the side of a mountain through all it’s cracks and crevices. It was very scenic, and we were pleasantly surprised that it was not crowded at all.

There’s a fair amount of ruins and petroglyphs in this area too. There are a few National Monuments protecting them, including Montezuma Castle, which is noteworthy for neither being a castle (though it was clearly living quarters) nor ever inhabited by Montezuma.

But despite the questionable naming, it was still definitely worth the stop.

(that’s the non-castle not inhabited by Montezuma over Kristen’s shoulder)

There’s also Montezuma’s Well – again Montezuma never lived in this area, but hey – I live in a town called Kansas City but they put it in Missouri, not Kansas, so who am I to judge? The well was pretty – it’s fed from deep underground and is apparently reasonably warm. The water stays in the mid-70’s. But they discourage you from swimming in it – apparently it’s teeming with leeches, who aren’t a lot of fun to swim with. There are also some dwellings near the well too.

There were also some cool ruins and petroglyphs along some more out-of-the-way trails near our campsite.

Aside from ruins and petroglyphs, it’s just a really beautiful part of the country. We are staying a bit south of the Sedona area. There are a bunch of beautiful trails near Sedona, but if you get a bit farther south, there’s still a ton of beauty but with nowhere near the traffic. One hike we enjoyed, and had almost all to ourselves, was the Bell Trail. It started out fairly non-descript, as it proceeded through a valley. One highlight in that stretch was a group of a couple dozen coatimundis that we encountered. I didn’t get a good picture of them unfortunately, but we did encounter a smaller group of them last year when we were in Tonto National Forest – here’s a picture of them from that trip:

Once you get a couple miles into the Bell Trail, it changes dramatically, as you start hiking along the side of the mountain until you get to a very cool and private swimming hole.

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We moved on from Tonto National Forest back on January 29th. But before we left Tonto, we did get a few more hikes in after the last post. One trek that I wanted to mention here was the Fremont Saddle trail, which we had never done before. It’s located pretty close to the Wind Cave trail I mentioned in the last post. It was a pretty steep hike at times, and Nico did amazing on it!

Not to rub it in or anything for any working stiffs reading this blog today, but we get some of the best lunch rooms around – here was our lunchroom on the Fremont Saddle trail:

As always, it was hard to say goodbye to Tonto National Forest.

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“Uh Ken… remember back in the first paragraph of this already-way-too-long blog post, when you were going to tell us why on earth you named this post “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground”?”

Oh yeah! I kinda went off on a couple dozen tangents there, didn’t I?

Well, one toy we own but don’t use a whole lot is a drone. We got a DJI Spark a few years back. National Parks largely don’t allow you to use drones, but most National Forests do allow them (reason #263 why National Forests are superior to National Parks!). So when we’re camping on a bluff in a national forest, why not break one out?

Pretty cool, eh?

Well, at least it was pretty cool, until the drone decided it didn’t want to talk to us anymore and, well, our little DJI angel decided to fly too close to the ground – the ground at the bottom of the canyon…

So, it was time to do some bushwhacking – time for a little rescue mission for our fallen angel.

Don’t worry, Willie! It wasn’t too bad to get down there and recover our angel. And it was kind of fun – Nico stayed back to guard the fort while Kristen spotted from the top of the mesa and I walked around the side, looking up at Kristen to find out which way the drone was.

And this story has a happy ending – we recovered the drone, and it was in good shape! We just had to replace some propeller guards and it was good as new!

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ANA (Ask Nico Anything!)

Nico, you shared some good looking dinners that you guys have made on the road, but do you all ever go out to eat?

Een jenerel, we makes wot we eats. Buht once a weak, Mama and Papa take Nico to a sitie – dey do lawndery and get growseree and gas and stuffs. Wen we do dis, Mama and Papa useuly takes Nico to resserant dat do not peek on dogs. Jus dis weak, Mama and Papa takes Nico to resserant wid gud name. It call ‘Ay Chihuahua’.

Nico like Mama an Papa cooks, but resserants gud to.

Nico, do you have big plans for the Super Bowl? And what’s the best dish to bring to a Super Bowl party?

Dis Sooper Bol feel weir – Nico has never bin alife for Sooper Bol dat de Chiefees not play in. Dat make Nico sad. But gud foods can help Nico get over et. Bes dish to brin ez bacons, off corse. But don feal lik u need to shar de bacons, unles et to shar wid Nico, den u shar all de bacons.

Nico, how do you hike so many miles on your Chihuahua legs?

Shud Nico wock on sumting uder dan Chihuahua legs? Dey all I no how to wock wid. But Nico open to sogesthuns.

– Ken 2/8/26