DH was just beginning to accept that the Birthday Tour was over and the Killer B's had indeed left us and gone home, and she was stuck with me for her daily entertainment and warm hugs. Apparently that prospect left her a little down in the dumps so she was in desperate need of a cosmic, spiritual, or psychic boost. Sedona, Arizona is a city of outstanding natural beauty, famous for its red sandstone rock formations - buttes, blue skies, and canyons, and more importantly it’s also home to "vortexes"- mysterious areas of concentrated energy to which seekers of enlightenment are drawn.

But before strapping on her tinfoil meditation hat, DH wanted to stand at a street corner in Winslow Arizona in order to channel her inner 70’s rock n roll chick. She leaned up against the life-size statue of a relaxed dude-with-guitar and belted out the famous Eagles song in a way that will keep the town bird-free for weeks to come;

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
It's a boy, my Lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin' down to take a look at me" 

Unlike DH, I was never a big Eagles fan but this song has endured on classic rock radio, a sleepytime anthem for aimless 1970s wandering which is kind of what we are doing right now. And just in case you’re thinking that we’re get much too big a thrill out of stops like this, the town estimates that 100,000 people stop by every year to stand on its corner (so there are at least 99,998 people just like us).

After this impromptu karaoke we did have to head to Sedona, but there was no need for the Winslow townsfolk to escort us to the city limits with pitch forks drawn. What DH lacks in musical talent, she makes up for in enthusiasm. The drive into Sedona is spectacular, and the geographic setting for the town has to be one of the most beautiful we’ve seen. To be fair we benefited from great weather and, just by chance, we stayed at the motel of a former Hollywood star (d*** Curtis had been in show business for over 60 years with appearances on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Carol Burnett Show, d*** Van Dyke Show and many others- he was on hand during breakfast to give us a lively tour through his colourful history).

Sedona was a fun stop but DH was here for some serious vortex healing to get over the loss of her beloved Killer B’s. The term vortex, as it applies to Sedona, was coined by Page Bryant, a medium who began investigating local sites sacred to Native Americans in the early 1980s. Sedona's "vortex tourism" industry may only have existed for a few decades, but the special properties of the sites have apparently been known to local tribes for generations. It's believed that vortex energy encourages healing, is an aid to meditation, and encourages feelings of well-being. To be generous, this vortex energy could be electro-magnetic, emanating from the earth's core but DH (where the ’D’ stands for Deepak) thinks the energy exists in another dimension and that it somehow crosses over into our world.

It might have been the vortex or the big ice cream I bought her, but she did seem noticeably chipper as we were leaving Sedona?