And how does one speak of Sedona? In hushed tones, or course.

Maggie, the delightful receptionist at the Albright Training Center, called one morning shortly after six o'clock (yeah, I groaned) to ask if I wouldn't like to hop into her little two-passenger Miata with the top down and do the two-and-a-half-hour trip to Sedona on our free Sunday? "Be ready by 8:30," says she. "We'll lunch on buffalo kabobs with fried rattlesnake and cactus at the Cowboy Cafe," all of which she topped off handily with a chocolate martini if you can believe ... (Lady Godiva, of course).

Earlier in the week I'd had the disconcerting experience of having been "outed" by an online article which had appeared in Inside NPS. Unlike the D-list "celebrity" I've become accustomed to being here at home, in this new context it made me appear kind of "above the fold" in importance. I later learned that it was Maggie who had discovered my more public persona and printed the piece out for posting in the classrooms. Up to that point I had been "Incog-Negro" and the added attention caught me off guard and more than a little surprised. At home the public attention from the media feels like a part of the job of doing outreach and not terribly real nor rightfully earned.

There is a sensuality to Sedona. The natural giant rock formations are clearly phallic and must surely have given rise to myth and legends of fecundity; fertility. The color is breath-taking! Against the azure skies the varied reds and oranges of the sandstone are stunning!

We visited the tiny Catholic Chapel of the Holy Cross that juts out from the dramatic background against which it was set like a brilliant and colorful gem in a tiara of some unnamed giant goddess. It was designed by a woman student of the great Frank Lloyd Wright (and whose name I've shamefully forgotten for the moment). It seats no more than about thirty people at any one time. Pilgrims from everywhere are ambling up a winding path from below in a never-ending stream of awe-struck art worshippers -- hour after hour -- and all surprisingly quiet and subdued; a tribute to true art. Here is a perfect blending of artistic vision and natural wonder.

More later ... .