Dear Arizona Travel: 

I am planning to visit Hopi country in late July and will most likely travel via Flagstaff from Phoenix. Could you please give me some advice on the best route and any other information relating to this? I only have a couple of days so want to make the most of it.I will most likely hire a car in Phoenix and drive north.

Thanks,

Richard L.

Hi, Richard!

First, directions to Hopi Country:
From Phoenix, take I-17 north right up to Flagstaff. It’s about a 2 hour drive.

www.hopiculturalcenter.com

Next, I assume you’ll be visiting the Hopi Cultural Center (www.hopiculturalcenter.com). The Hopi Cultural Center is located on the Second Mesa.

To get to the Hopi Cultural Center from Flagstaff: Take Highway 879A North to Townsend-Winona street. Turn right and proceed about 10 miles to Leupp road; turn left and continue north another 31 miles to the Kykotsmovi turn off (just past the Little Colorado River Bridge); continue north 48 miles to Kykotsmovi on Third Mesa. Approximately 92 miles from Flagstaff.

For your overnight lodging, you could stay at the Hopi Cultural Center’s lodge. Full disclosure:
I personally know nothing of the lodging there. But, if you’re aiming for a trip truly focused on immersing yourself in the Hopi culture, I think staying at their lodge absolutely makes the most sense!

I am much more familiar with Flagstaff and I lean toward encouraging you to make it your “home base” for two days based on a) my unfamiliarity with the Hopi Cultural Center’s lodge, and b) my own bias toward staying overnight in a more established city where there are greater options for dining and additional sightseeing. Our Flagstaff.com site has everything you need to know about Flagstaff hotels should you decide to go that route.

I hope you have a great time, Richard.  Feel free to keep us posted on how it goes!  I’d love it if you’d post comments or photos of your trip on our Facebook page at facebook.com/ariztravel!

Take care and enjoy your trip!
–ChristinaToo

PS: Readers – I need your help on this one! Have you stayed at the Hopi Cultural Center? Which do you recommend: lodging at the HCC or staying overnight in Flagstaff?

Photo credit: JasonRogersFooDogGiraffeBee

This month, our guest spiritual contributor from Sedona, Greg Drambour, shares some of his personal experiences and muses on his relationship with the red rocks of Arizona.  If you’re local (or from nearby southern Utah like me, or one of our Four Corners area neighbors) I have a feeling you’ll totally relate to the pop-culture impetus of Greg’s post.

***

A few nights ago I was watching the movie Forrest Gump (tenth time!) and a rush of gratitude went through me during the scene where he is running through Monument Valley. The rocks there resemble many of the red rock formations here in Sedona. In that moment, I just felt so grateful to be part of this amazing place called Sedona. Suddenly, that beautiful feeling opened a door inside to many realizations about myself and my work here in the Magic Kingdom. I thought I would share them!

My relationship with the Grandfather and Grandmother Rock People (as I refer to them in the Native American tradition) really started when I moved to Sedona seven years ago. But when I look back over the years, I notice whenever I had the chance I was always scaling and scrambling over some rocks. It just made me feel good to be close to them. I felt they were friends.
At first here in Sedona my relationship to the Rock People grew without me noticing it. Every day, I would find some new boulder field or dry creek bed to explore. I felt at home among the rocks. I just kept following my heart and discovering incredible places. I saw how in a few tight situations the rocks saved me. People will ask what do you mean, “Saved you?” I can’t explain that in words, only that I always seem to be guided over them to the safest route or one boulder was exactly where I needed it to be. It was a feeling that they were supporting me. I started thanking them for this help on hikes and climbs. I would stop and talk to them, asking how they were. And soon I began to hear them speak to me. My trust deepened that they would support me on tricky scrambles or boulder-hopping. The Rock People are strong and solid. They have much wisdom they want to offer you if you are open to listening.
On Sedona Vortex experiences, I always feel their support of the mission here in Sedona. I honor their wisdom during Experiences by asking for guidance; they always see the big picture. If I accidentally kick a small rock, I bend down and apologize, asking if it wants to return to its original location or begin a new journey. I always tell clients when we are boulder dancing, “Don’t worry, you are in my personal power and I’ve never had anyone fall.” Perhaps what I really mean is the Grandfather and Grandmother Rock People honor my intent of trust and faith and will not let you stumble or fall. I have never had a client fall nor have I fallen myself in all these years.

When I saw that scene of the Red Rocks in Forrest Gump, I heard myself whispering, “That’s my place, my place.” I felt so honored to be in a relationship with these grand rock formations. To have a place in my life which I am deeply committed too and that commitment is honored. My gratitude for these feelings is overwhelming. I have waited so many years to be able to have these rich feelings and to open myself and take these relationships to a deeper level. Perhaps most of all I am grateful to be who I am. I know many of you, know what I mean. And if you don’t, come to Sedona and I will do whatever I can to guide you back to yourself on a Sedona retreat.

If you show your heart, my friends, if you acknowledge that everything has life, if you trust—you can experience these deep feelings of gratitude and honor.

So on this day in the Magic Kingdom, “I humbly thank all the Rock People and the Grandfather and Grandmother Rocks for becoming my friend. I am honored to be kin to you, to be your grandson and brother. My heart is full. I am standing before you. I go, you go. A Ho. A Ho.”

*Dedicated to my beloved, Shyheart.
Greg (the guide)
Come Follow Me on Twitter!

photo credit: kathycsus on flickr.com

The Verde Valley Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society announced that tickets are
now available for films and concerts during its first annual Festival of Native American
Culture to be held from June 5 through 13, 2009, at the Red Rock District Visitor Center, south
of the Village of Oak Creek and at the Sedona Visitor Center in Uptown.

In association with the Sedona International Film Festival, activities begin with a Native
American Film Festival featuring documentaries, fiction and music videos by Native
American filmmakers.

Here’s the line-up of events:

Friday, June 5: two Navajo films entitled Turquoise Rose and A Gift From Talking God: The Story
of the Navajo Churro.  At the Clarkdale Memorial Clubhouse. 7:00 pm.

Saturday, June 6: The Radisson Poco Diablo Resort will host a Dinner Theatre, with special guest Michael Blake, the Academy Award® winning screenwriter and author of Dances With Wolves, who will show and discuss his film The
American West: On The Road With Michael Blake. 6:00 pm.

Film Festival at the Harkins Theatre in Sedona
Sunday, June 7:

• 6:30 pm show – the Canadian Inuit film Before Tomorrow, which will be preceded by Sandpainting Healing with Walking Thunder.
• 9:00 pm show – brings back two highly popular films from the Sedona International Film Festival earlier this year, American Outrage and CHE AH CHI: The History of Boynton Canyon.

Film Festival at the Canyon Moon Theatre in The Village of Oak Creek (VOC) Two unique events never before held in Arizona.

Monday, June 8: Films by indigenous filmmakers from Latin America.

• 3:00 pm matinee – Films from Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.
• 7:00 pm show – Films from Guatemala and Bolivia.

Tuesday, June 9 – The Film Festival concludes on  with a series of short
subjects by members of the Native American Producers Alliance. 7:00 pm.

The Festival ends with a Celebration of Native American Music and Dance.

Friday, June 12: Canyon Records recording artist Gabriel Ayala will perform in concert at St. John Vianney Church, Sedona, of Classical, Tango, Flamenco and Contemporary guitar. 7:00 pm.

Saturday, June 13: An Evening of Native Dance will close the Festival  in the Sedona
Hilton Tequa Ballroom. The Halau Hula Napuaokalei’ilima troupe will perform Hawaiian
dances as performed for the Heard Museum’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. They will be
followed by the internationally-known Dancing Earth, a collective of performance artists
representing the First Nations who create experimental yet elemental dances that reflect their
rich cultural heritage to explore their identity as contemporary Native peoples.  7:00 pm

Tickets can also be purchased online. Other ticket outlets are being added. Details of the Festival events are available at www.festivalofnativeamericanculture.org, or by
calling 928-284-4764.

Phoenix, Arizona – In braided costumes of red, blue, orange and white, the dancers swirl around a sand circle to the chanting of a dozen elderly Indians, all the while balancing up to 30 flexible hoops on their body.

The scene takes place outside a museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the dancers are competing for the world title in the centuries-old tradition of the hoop dance.

Every year, Native Americans from the United States and Canada come together in Phoenix to celebrate the dance. Participants form figures resembling flowers, eagles or the sun by balancing dozens of metre-wide rings on their feet, legs, arms and shoulders and in their mouths.

‘This is a great example of our culture, and of culture in the Southwest,’ says Brian Hammel, 35, a dancer from the Hochunk tribe in West Wisconsin.

The dancers’ annual meeting place, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, pays tribute to Native American culture all year long. With eight exhibits of tribal art, crafts and history, the museum is the ideal starting point to explore Native American culture in the southwestern United States.

Arizona is home to 21 different tribes with an overall population of more than 250,000 people. Reservations and tribal communities occupy over a quarter of the state’s lands.

Local operators offer trips from Arizona’s major cities to the reservations of the Hopi and Navajo tribes, where tourists can eat indigenous foods and learn more about the traditions of America’s first people.

White European settlers also left their imprints on the region. The flow of cowboys, railroad men and gold-diggers to Arizona in the 19th century kicked off the famous Wild West era, traces of which can still be found across the state.

Visitors can walk the streets of violent cowboy ghost towns like Tombstone or try to find forgotten treasures in the remains of former goldmine camps.

Several sites like the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, the Skull Valley Railroad Depot or Prescott’s Whiskey Row aim to give visitors a real taste of the old Wild West.

Arizona, however, is best known for its natural beauty. The World Heritage Site of the Grand Canyon is in the state’s north-west, where it attracts more than 4 million people annually to explore the Grand Canyon National Park by foot, air, river, mule or train.

Popular activities are wild-water rafting down the Colorado River, jeep tours through the park’s desert landscape and helicopter tours giving a breathtaking overview of the canyon.

But there are other sites off the beaten tracks which are also worth a visit.

The Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix showcases more than 50,000 local plants including a vast variety of flowers somewhat unusual in the desert. Small birds and local butterflies including Painted Ladies and the regal Queens are regular guests in the floral gardens.

Possibly the oddest desert site is the so-called Mystery Castle. Built in the 1930s outside Phoenix from trash found in the desert, the house looks like a Wild West version of a Hundertwasser design – with furniture created by America’s best known architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The house is still inhabited by the builder’s daughter Miss Gulley, who gives tours of her home. From the Mystery Castle it is only a short ride to Frank Lloyd Wright’s former winter residence in Scottsdale.

The architect famous for designing New York’s Guggenheim Museum built a whole complex including a cabaret theatre, a music hall as well as an architectural studio and living space using local rocks and desert sand. Wright’s winter camp is now managed by a foundation and open for public visitors on guided tours.