Digital Nomad Family- Course Update #4 – Sedona, AZ

by | Feb 12, 2019 | Digital Nomad |

Digital Nomad Family- Course Update #4 – Sedona, AZ
Settling into our home in Cottonwood, Arizona has been SO much easier than our first “landing” experience in New York! Part of that is due to our absolute delight in Pumpkin’s new nanny Paula, who has been invaluable both as a reliable, gentle, and playful caregiver, but also as a local resource full of excellent recommendations for local parks, trails, and service providers (like my new chiropractor).
This landing experience has truly been about as graceful as we could desire. It helps that we’re actually in a true “town.” Cottonwood & Sedona combined have a population of about 20K people, which is a far cry from the tiny “hamlet” of Copake, NY (population 3400, which felt more like 1500). Most of our shopping places are 10-30 minutes away rather than 45 min to 1 hr+, which is a big deal when you’re trying to fit in some errands before/after Pumpkin’s nap time.
Most of you have probably heard of Sedona, Arizona for its majestic Red Rocks, and it has a reputation as a New Age hotspot full of energy vortexes that you can hike around to experience. It brings in over 5 million tourists annually, and in many ways it reminds us of our home town of Salem, MA… just more hippies and fewer witches ;).
Cottonwood, AZ is a town just 25 minutes away essentially straight across the desert from Sedona and tucked in along the next mountain range. So, our neighborhood is built into the side of a big mountain, and our windows look across the rolling hills and desert scrub toward the red rock cliffs of Sedona.
What’s particularly nice about Cottonwood is that it’s completely accessible to all the beauty and fun of Sedona, but much less expensive and a bit more “grounded.” Don’t get me wrong… we love tourists (both being and seeing), but it’s also nice to really get to know some locals and feel like we’re part of a community.

Getting to Work

I was fortunate enough to be directed to the local Cottonwood Business Assistance Center by the staff at the library, and that has become my unofficial office while in town. They’ve welcomed me to borrow an office and their high-speed internet network whenever I have a client call … for free!
So, two days a week I’m tucking myself into one of their offices and able to get some real client work done! HOORAY!!!! Then, when I just have some writing, research, or other business development tasks to do I’m finding some great cafes like the Red Rooster Cafe here in Cottonwood or the Pump House Eatery in Sedona. 
The Pump House often has a crackling fireplace, some delightful chai, and a good table to curl up for a while, which has made working the last few weeks a real pleasure. 

Making New Friends

Pumpkin and I have also been finding a new MomTribe of friends here in town. I was pleased to find the Cottonwood Mamas Garden which meets every Thursday morning and often has 10-12 mamas and 12-15+ kids at a range of ages, but there are several right around Pumpkin’s age.

In all honesty, the groups can get slightly overwhelming for both of us with 20+ people (and lots of toddler excitement), but we’ve been connecting with a few mamas & toddlers from the group for private playdates too and that has been lovely! I definitely miss our MomTribe back home at times, but we’re opening our hearts to meeting some new wonderful friends here too.

For all of you who remind me that you’re living vicariously through our journey, I’m sure what you really want to hear about is the weather.

It Really is THAT Beautiful

Yep, as I write this I know that many of our friends up north are experiencing a truly frightening polar vortex with bitterly cold wind-chill and temperatures in the single digits and teens. Today, in Cottonwood the high will be 65 degrees F, and generally it’s been highs of 45-67 for all of the past several weeks.

Additionally, we’ve seen more rainbows here in the past few weeks than I’ve seen in years! Here’s one (pictured above) that we captured as we drove up Oak Creek Canyon on one of our first weekends in town. 

Having had our share of scary New England winters, we are definitely loving the fact that we can go hiking and wandering around adorable little towns like Jerome, AZ in the middle of January often with just a light jacket.

If you’re collecting places to visit, then Old Town Cottonwood is quite charming with great restaurants and cafes. We loved our dinner at Merkin Vinyards, where the wine and food were both delicious, and they were charmed by Pumpkin’s playful spirit and enthusiasm for all of the food we shared with her. 

Jerome, AZ has AMAZING views of the Verde Valley, delicious wine tasting rooms, and lots of eccentric and fun art galleries. Known as “the wickedest town in the west,” Jerome was a historic mining town that began its boom in the 1880’s. Then, after the copper mine tapped out in the 1950’s, it became a complete ghost town with abandoned buildings that were literally sliding down the mountain and crumbling into rubble.

Now it’s experiencing a revival of tourism, and even in the five years since we were last here it’s become quite a unique and colorful place to visit for a day or two.

We spontaneously ended up in Flagstaff for dinner a couple weeks ago (when trying to avoid getting stuck in the Oak Creek Canyon traffic driving into Sedona), and we found a hip university town with some great craft beer options tucked underneath a snow capped mountain. Flagstaff is where folks go to ski around here, and it definitely has that “ski mountain town” vibe too. 
And, of course, there’s Sedona itself… We decided to spring for the Red Rocks Park Pass which allows us to walk along Oak Creek next to Cathedral Rock at Cresent Moon Ranch whenever we want a nice (reasonably toddler-friendly) stroll. We’ve already been there 3-4 times in almost as many weeks.
On Imbolc weekend (Groundhog Day weekend as most people know it… which is roughly midway between the Winter Solstice & the Spring Equinox), we drove to Scottsdale to go to the Electric Desert display at the Desert Botanical Garden. 
A stunning mixture of nature and art with lights and music illuminating the beautiful desert night, this event was well worth the 3+ hours of driving back and forth. If Pumpkin was a bit older then we would have like to go for most of the daytime as well, but nap time takes priority.
While there wasn’t a snowflake in sight, it was a one-of-a-kind way to commune with the darkness at this time of the year and celebrate the slow returning of our world toward spring time. 

What’s Next?

We still have two more months here in Arizona, and we’re looking forward to going down to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area again as well as continuing to find new places to hike around these beautiful mountains and canyons.
The BIG NEWS, however, is that I’m going to start doing weekly Facebook Lives on my Chosen Course Facebook Page very soon… so, make sure you FOLLOW ME on Facebook to get a chance to connect with me live and get more updates about our travels, lessons learned, and some great productivity tips for digital nomads and entrepreneurs. 
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