GO US: Accompanying a friend on a personal odyssey to the mountain desert town of Prescott, Noelle Harrisis captivated by a land at the edge of American Pioneer history.
WE SIT IN a circle in the crystal grotto, a sky littered with stars visible through an opening in the roof and soft red sand under our feet. My friend Lucy is holding an eagle feather, and I am looking at her in astonishment as she tells a group of strangers why we are in Arizona. "I came here with my friend and her son to meet my birth mother. I'm adopted."
We are taking part in a Native American talking-circle ceremony at Enchantment Resort, in Sedona. RJ, the Cree who leads the group, burns sweetgrass and smudges each of us with it.
The talking circle is a simple idea. When the eagle feather is passed to you, you can say something, if you choose. People divulge secrets safe in the knowledge that we are all strangers.
Afterwards I feel uplifted. One woman, who has come to Arizona to face her fear of heights at the rim of the Grand Canyon, asks Lucy if she met her mother. "Yes," she replies. "We did."
It is the end of a memorable week. When I first suggested Lucy spend some time getting to know her birth mother, Ella, the challenge of this was made more appealing by the fact that Ella lives in Arizona. We were going on an adventure to a frontier land, a fitting backdrop for our pioneer quest. I was also excited about taking my son to Arizona, a fantastic place for an 11-year-old boy's imagination.
Arizona's climate couldn't be more different from Ireland's. It is November, yet the sun shines relentlessly every day in cloudless skies, and, although it drops at night, the average temperature during the day is 25 degrees. But the main difference is the air: it is dry, with just 5 per cent humidity. After two days my skin is drying up, and I have to buy a huge bottle of sunflower-oil lotion. The weather is the perfect antidote to Irish damp.
We flew to Phoenix, the state capital, via Chicago. We had planned to spend our first night in Phoenix and to meet Lucy's mother the next day. Flight cancellations meant Ella met us off the aircraft 24 hours after we were meant to arrive; she drove us to Prescott, her hometown, two hours north of Phoenix and more than 1,600m above sea level.
I am struck by how alike Lucy and Ella look. Yet as the week goes on, and their different personalities emerge, they begin to look less and less alike. I cannot believe that, after 20 years of talking about it, we are finally here with Lucy's birth mother.
Prescott is a picturesque town surrounded by mountain desert. It is a perfect base for day trips to the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Flagstaff. This high above sea level it is always a bit cooler than in Phoenix.
We are staying at Hotel St Michael, which opened in 1901 to replace Hotel Burke, which burned down in the great fire of 1900. It is in the centre of town, on the corner of South Montezuma Street, which is better known as Whiskey Row and is famous for once housing 40 saloons. The challenge was for the cowboys and miners living here to go to every saloon in a night and survive. The street is still lively, especially at night, with a good number of bars and restaurants, as well as craft and jewellery shops and art galleries.
Hotel St Michael has the oldest working elevator in northern Arizona – it was installed in 1925 – a fact that greatly impresses my son, who spends a lot of time "go upee, go downee", as a newspaper of the period invited hotel patrons to do.
We have booked a two-room suite: two adjoining rooms with a bathroom. They are spacious, comfortable and full of character. The price includes breakfast cooked to order at Caffe St Michael, next to the hotel. Each morning we feast while gazing out at locals: guys who look like cowboys, tourists and the odd character such as the man who walks backwards around the square every morning for an hour.
Caffe St Michael is open all day, so we also eat here a couple of evenings; it is exceptional value. The good exchange rate makes our money stretch a lot farther than it would in most of Europe. Our week's BB costs $598 (€465) for the three of us.
There is plenty to do in Prescott. If you can tear yourself away from the shops and galleries there is Sharlot Hall Museum (www.sharlot.org), where you can view the two- storey log mansion that was the first governor's residence, or go to the Smoki Museum (www.smoki.com), built like an Indian pueblo, which displays southwestern Indian artefacts since prehistoric times.
From town you can see Thumb Butte, an outcrop that you reach by driving five kilometres along Gurley and Thumb Butte road. A two-kilometre trail leads to the summit, although the final 100m or so is suitable only for rock climbers.
Wild Iris Coffeehouse, in downtown Prescott, serves great coffee and delicious zoka chai tea, mini pumpkin cheescakes, handmade truffles and other cakes. Another great place to eat is Gurley Street Grill, where the corn chowder is scrumptious.
We spend much of our week in the company of Lucy's birth mother, Ella, who moved to Arizona for a reason. She is involved in an ashram just outside Prescott. Her teacher is American but has spent many years in India, learning from his guru, and although the buildings of the ashram are very plain they are stuffed with ancient sacred Asian art.
The community has just opened a gallery, the Vigraha, displaying much of this art. We have a meal with the community; it is preceded by chanting. Neither Lucy nor my son enjoys the experience.
The more people I meet, the more I realise how important religion is for most Arizonans, whether they express it through fundamental Christianity, ashrams or New Age spiritualism. I find it odd that Ella's ashram looks to Asian culture for inspiration when right on the doorstep is the spiritual heritage of Native American culture. Lucy keeps remarking how sad it is that so few Native Americans seem to be left in the area.
When you travel to the Grand Canyon this sensation is even stronger, and it is impossible not to picture the native people as they were forced across the desert – the shameful Trail of Tears, which runs through Sedona.
Prescott has very little public transport, so it is essential to hire a car if you want to see the surrounding sights. The driving is easy, on big wide roads in automatic cars. We take a day trip to the Grand Canyon, two and half hours' drive from Prescott, and have a picnic on the East Rim.
We see very few tourists, and I am astonished at how unspoilt the canyon and the park around it are. We see deer and elk, and trees full of blue jays and curious ravens. Watching the sun set over the canyon is an awesome experience. Pink and orange light shifts across red-and-ochre striped rocks, precariously balanced boulders and deep ravines and gorges. Shadows lengthen all the way down to the snaking sliver of the blue Colorado river.
I have been told that the best way to experience the Grand Canyon is to go down it. You can take a short hike on the South Kaibab Trailhead to Ooh Aah Point (a two and a half kilometre round trip) or visit Havasupai Indian Reservation, in the beautiful Havasu Canyon. Tribal headquarters are in Supai, the only village within the Grand Canyon; access is by a 12km trail from the canyon rim. Havasupai Tourist Enterprise (00-1-928- 4482141) can arrange horses or mules for a fee if you book ahead. All visitors to the reservation pay an entry fee of $20 (about €16). Entry to Grand Canyon National Park costs $25 (about €19) per car. The best place to stay overnight is the El Tovar Hotel, where you can have breakfast watching the sun rise. Not far from the canyon is the town of Flagstaff, a good place to stay the night as well.
The snow-capped San Francisco Peaks glimmer under the full moon, and it doesn't surprise me when Ella tells me they are sacred mountains for the Hopi. Like Prescott, Flagstaff looks like a town from a cowboy movie, with clapboard buildings. Route 66 runs through Flagstaff; you can take it through the Painted Desert all the way to Albuquerque, in New Mexico. A great place to stay in Flagstaff is Hotel Monte vista (see www.hotelmontevista.com); the town has tons of fabulous restaurants and cafes.
Back in Prescott, Ella's mother, brother and sister-in-law have prepared an early Thanksgiving dinner to celebrate Lucy's trip to meet her "other" family.
I help Ella in the kitchen. She talks about losing Lucy when she was a baby. I feel she is telling me because she can't bear to say it to Lucy and knows I will relay the information to my friend. I find it impossible to judge this woman for giving up her baby. Instead I feel deep compassion for her. As a mother it is very clear to me how hard it must have been for her to give up Lucy, and how her situation at the time meant she did a brave and unselfish thing. It is very touching to see how excited Ella is to show Lucy off to her family.
The next day Lucy, my son and I decide to take a break from Ella and her family for a couple of days and drive to Sedona. We head for Jerome, an old copper-mining centre and former ghost town, on hairpin bends through the mountains. Every few moments I hear Lucy and my son exclaim on the view, but I have to keep my eye on the road. The town is perched more than 1,500m above the valley below. We eat a fabulous lunch in the Haunted Hamburger, which overlooks the town and mountain landscape. Lucy tells me that Ella used to sing in a band at the Connor Hotel on the main street, a good place to stay if you want to spend the night in Jerome.
We head on to Sedona, to spend two nights at the spectacular Enchantment Resort (www.enchantmentresort.com). Normally this sort of place would be way above our budget, but with the slowdown in the US economy you can get incredible deals off season. We get a casita, or little adobe house, with two queen beds, a private balcony and stunning views, for $225 (€180), reduced from about $750 (€600). Children under 12 stay for free.
For $22 (€17.50) you can use all of the resort's facilities and take part in lots of activities and classes – from hikes, yoga, t'ai chi and dance to lectures on Native American culture and "sacred vortex" walks.
We were worried that Enchantment Resort might be a little tacky, but our fears dissipate as soon as we arrive. Set in the "vortex site" of Boynton Canyon, the resort is a discreet collection of casitas the same colour as the rocks. As we drive in we see a small family of javelina, or peccaries, which are like wild pigs, snuffling in the bushes, and deer climbing up the side of the canyon.
At night there is very little outside lighting. Our first evening is warm enough to swim in the open-air pool under the most startling night sky. Arizona is trying to cut light pollution; the policy's benefits are evident here. I can see the Milky Way perfectly. We are the only ones in the pool, and it is a perfect moment.
The next day, while my son is happily occupied in the kids' Coyote Camp, playing tennis and croquet, swimming, and making beaded jewellery and T-shirts, Lucy and I go on a guided trail up the Red Rocks of Sedona. We are shown bobcat tracks and coyote poop. We see quails and are warned not to go too close to the prickly pear cactus and the crucifixion cactus – aptly named.
Up we wend through a dusty dry trail of hard red rock and loose shale, Thunder Mountain to our left, until we reach a high rocky plateau with panoramic views of Sedona and other "spiritual vortexes", such as Cathedral Rock and Airport Mesa. The sun beats down on us even though it is late November.
We spend the afternoon at the resort's Mii Amo Spa. You have to pay extra for the treatments, but the quality of the therapists is second to none.
Two days in the resort has felt like a week of bliss. We drag ourselves away and return to Prescott, where we spend our final night in Arizona. We book back into Hotel St Michael, and it almost feels like home.
As I lie on my bed, watching the ceiling fan spin, I sense the presence of ghost cowboys from the past. This sensation of going back into frontier history is infectious. Lucy and I are drawn to Native American culture – Navajo, Zuni and Hopi jewellery and Kachina dolls. My son has been transformed into a little cowboy – a real cowboy hat on his head, second-hand cowboy boots that he hasn't taken off all week on his feet and a red kerchief around his neck. I swear he is even swaggering as we walk down the road.
Testament to my son's transformation is on the piece of paper passed to me by an old cowboy poet as he walks out of the cafe the following morning, after breakfast. His name is Thomas H Oliver, and he has written a poem about my son called Jr Rodeo Champion. For my son this is the highlight of the trip.
After we say goodbye to Ella at Phoenix airport, I ask Lucy if she is glad we came. She isn't sure. It was all rather overwhelming. But then she smiles, the American half of her face looking so at home under her cowboy hat. "But I loved Arizona," she says. "I want to come back." So do I.
Where to stay, where to eat, where to go and where to shop
Where to stay
Hotel St Michael. 205 West Gurley Street, Prescott, 00-1-928-776199, www.stmichaelhotel.com.
El Tovar Hotel. South Rim, Grand Canyon, 00-1-928-6382631, www.grandcanyonlodges.com.
Hotel Montevista. 110 North San Francisco, Flagstaff, 00-1-928-7796971, www.hotelmontevista.com
Connor Hotel. 164 Main, Jerome, 00-1-6345006, www.connorhotel.com.
Enchantment Resort. 525 Boynton Canyon Road, Sedona, 00-1-928-2822900, www.enchantmentresort.com.
Where to eat
Caffe St Michael. Hotel St Michael, 205 West Gurley Street, Prescott, 00-1-928- 776199, www.stmichaelhotel. com.
Gurley Street Grill. 230 West Gurley, Prescott, 00-1-928-4453388, www.murphysrestaurants.com.
Pasquale’s Place. 148 North Montezuma, Prescott, 00-1-928-4454168.
Where to go
Walnut Canyon National Monument. 00-1-928-5263367, www.nps.gov/waca. Ancient Sinagua ruins.
Sunset Crater National Monument. 00-1-928-5260502, www.nps.gov/sucr. Extinct volcano crater.
Wupatki National Monument. 00-1-928-6792365, www.nps.gov/wupa. Ancient Sinagua ruins.
Cameron Trading Post. 466 Highway 89, Cameron, 1-928-679-2231, www.camerontradingpost.com. Navajo trading post.
Meteor Crater. Exit 233, Interstate 40, Winslow, 00-928-2895898, www.meteorcrater.com. A 175m deep crater created by a meteor that struck earth thousands of years ago.
Museum of Northern Arizona. 3101 North Fort Valley Road, Flagstaff, 00-1-928-7745213, www.musnaz.org. The gift shop has a wide selection of Navajo jewellery and crafts.
Oak Creek Canyon. Scenic drive from Flagstaff to Sedona.
Where to shop
The Old Sage Bookshop. 110 South Montezuma Street, Prescott, 00-1-928-7761136. Beautiful little bookshop with new and second-hand and antiquarian books.
Arts Prescott Gallery, 134 South Montezuma Street, Prescott, 00-928-7767717, www.artsprescott.com. A co-op gallery owned and operated by local artists since 1994.
Vigraha Gallery. Courtyard Building, 115 East Goodwin, Prescott, 00-1-928-7782534, www.vigrahasacredart.com. Asian art.
Prairie Rose Boutique, 223 West Gurley Street, Prescott, 00-928-4430909, www.prairieroseboutique.com. Cowgirl fashion.
Snap Snap, 226 S.Montezuma. Fantastic second-hand clothes shop.
Prescott Hats. 106 South Montezuma, Prescott, 00-1-928-7761150, www.prescotthats.com.You can get your cowboy hat here.