MichaelAs a relaxing vacation during the break between Christmas and New Years, we set out to fly to the small town of Sedona in the state of Arizona. We had booked a vacation rental home and spent some time exploring the beautiful rock formations surrounding the area, famously radiating their intense red light. The desert climate in Sonoma presented below freezing temperatures, which really felt nasty cold to us, being used to San Francisco's milder coastal weather now. We had booked a standalone vacation rental via VRBO ("Vacation Rentals by Owner"), and since the consumer price index in Arizona is still miles away from the current inflated craziness in the Bay Area, we paid about as much as for a rundown San Francisco motel room, but got an entire house with three spacious and tastefully furnished rooms that would have slept six. The vast living room featured a real cast-iron wood-burning oven, which I practiced my fire making skills on every single evening.

At dusk one day, we wanted to hop into our rental car and drive somewhere, but noticed that it had been surrounded by about a dozen wild pigs digging around in the dirt near the parking spot. I darted towards the driver's door and jumped in, but then struggled finding the opener for the passenger door, which left Angelika locked out for a few seconds. She started moving erratically thinking she was going to be attacked by the pigs, but that was of course totally overblown.

The city of Sedona itself is a small touristy place, featuring the usual useless art galeries to be expected in such places. Every day around four in the afternoon, tourists are heading back to town in droves from their hiking trips and cause miles and miles of stand-still traffic on the two arterial roads leading towards the village center, where everyone and their dog is later trying to grab a bite to eat at a handful of restaurants, which are unsurprisingly packed to the brim.

It was off-season when we were there, I'm pretty sure that Sonoma turns into an Octoberfest-grade party town during the summer season. What's sticking out from an automotive transportation perspective are the huge number roundabouts at various intersections throughout the city. Driving directions to our vacation rental mentioned about a dozen of them. An astonishing number of rural Americans don't know how to approach these and do silly things like coming to a complete stop with their monster trucks right before the roundabout, instead of simply entering when it's safe to do, just as if they saw an invisible stop sign posted in front. Honking usually helps.

The day before New Year's Eve, we drove up two hours to our old favorite, Grand Canyon. On the mountainous road at zero Fahrenheit, the cheap rental car's windows fogged up with a thick layer of ice and the car's whimpy fan wasn't blowing strong enough to clear them up, so we had to stop at a gas station to purchase an ice scraper. Unfortunately, the cashier confided in us that they ran out of out of ice scrapers entirely because of the weather conditions! Luckily, five miles down the road, we found another gas station somewhat off the beaten track which still carried the desired item, and we continued our journey with properly cleared windows.

At Grand Canyon Village, we inquired about the trail conditions at the visitor center. We wanted to know if we could hike the so-called Bright Angel Trail, a steep path down to the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. As our loyal long time readers know, the two of us actually met in Las Vegas many many years ago and drove to Grand Canyon. Being a young lad back then, me and my buddy Huaba started at the rim and hiked all the way down to the Colorado River and back up in a single session. I remember that an Englishman in our group couldn't handle it and collapsed on the way up, a mile before reaching the rim. We had to climb down again and nourish him with Snickers bars to get him to continue all the way up. Ironically, this time we found that the trail description had been removed by the park rangers from the visitor center's maps. The fine print explains that it takes several days to complete. Haha!

It was the middle of December, and the park rangers told us in no uncertain terms that the trail was quite icy and strongly recommended to get so-called "crampons", miniature climbing irons for the hike. Unfortunately, they were out of rentals that day, and we settled for two pairs of trecking poles at the unbeatable price of $2 (per stick), and set out to slowly stumble down the icy trail while holding onto them. After about two miles, the ice was gone, and we continued on the trail to a small hut, then turned around after 3 miles and went back up to the parking lot. The views in the canyon are pretty amazing, with the stair-like rock formations, with the total elevation difference being 6000 feet, while the canyon measures 18 miles at the widest section.

On another day trip near Sedona, we were hiking on the West Fork Trail, which wiggles across a small creek about a dozen times inside a narrow canyon. There's no bridges, and hikers need to cross the creek every time by balancing on rocks or fallen trees in the water. Some parts of the creek were covered with a thin layer of ice, cracking suspiciously while we carefully tippy toed across.

We also trotted up the trail to "Devil's Bridge", another popular Sedona scenic hike to a natural rock bridge. It can be crossed on a narrow trail with a gaping drop of a few hundred feet on either side. I'm not afraid of heights, so I went back and forth a few times, while Angelika stayed on the safe side and started worrying so much that the quality of the photos taken turned out to be terrible! Oh my!

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	San Francisco Shantytown
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  	Controversial Urinal in Dolores Park
  	Top Product: Arlo Surveillance Cameras
  	Monster Waves at Mavericks