L’Auberge de Sedona – Today we made a journey “up the hill”, as they call it here in Arizona, to Sedona, Arizona from our home in N. Scottsdale.  Our home in N. Scottsdale sits at an elevation of roughly 2,600 ft., where here at L’Auberge de Sedona we sit at around 4,500 ft.

The drive up I-17 is a stunning mountain journey.  As you approach Sedona, the color of the soil and rock turn to a most beautiful shade of terra cotta.  This is one of the many glorious views as you approach the town of Sedona.

As we pulled into L’Auberge, I was immediately dumbfounded as the hotel staff greeted me by name!  How did they know my name?  I have never been here before.

Clearly, L’Auberge did a little homework on us and decided to make a powerful first impression.  Wonderfully, this was not the only display of impeccable service and attention to detail.  Every encounter with the L’Auberge team has been a decisively wonderful experience.

L’Auberge was generating wows from us from the very first encounter.  Impressive!

The owners of L’Auberge de Sedona have just invested $25 million dollars of updating to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this fabled creek-side Inn, and we were going to stay in one of their brand-new red rock view cottages.

The cottages are reminiscent of a French country lodge. As we were riding in our chauffeured electric green-mobile I was feeling a little apprehension as I didn’t know how these lodges were going to stack up with our expectations.

Although the cottages were very charming in this creek-side setting, I really wasn’t in the frame of mind to be “roughing it” on this particular journey.

What a wonderful surprise awaited us when we open the door.  The inside of these cottages are completely modern, tastefully appointed, and contain all the niceties that a discriminating traveler would desire.

Nice!

Here’s our living area:

our bedroom area…

…and our wonderful bathroom. Complete with an outdoor shower!

After unpacking our suitcases, we lounged on our deck and enjoyed the spectacular views along with a nice Pinot Noir and goodies that we found in our room from L’Auberge.  Thanks L’Auberge!

Not being ones who will normally enjoy a bottle of wine during the middle of the day, we decided that a power nap would be a good thing and enjoyed a nice 20 minute snooze.

We then set out down the hill to explore L’Auberge’s Oak Creek setting.

We found comfy chairs set all about the creek…

and enjoyed Oak Creek views.

We spent several hours enjoying the creek, the ducks, the shade from the hot sun, the cool breeze, and each others company while seated in a wonderful creek-side lounge swing.

After a most relaxing afternoon, we hopped back in the electric green-mobile which whisked us back up to our red rock view cottage to find this amazing display of God’s creation from our deck.

I’m dying to tell you about our exquisite and romantic dining experience, but as already mentioned, I will tell  you about that in a separate post.

As we finished our evening, we found a beautiful moon glowing in the Sedona skies…

and decided it was time now to enjoy the luxury of our recently turned down room.

I must confess, I wasn’t expecting L’Auberge de Sedona to be quite this magnificent.  We are both looking forward to another day.

See you tomorrow with more adventures.