Game Hunting in Sedona

We covered the Tlaquepaque area yesterday.  Today we spent a lot of time driving and walking the main roads and back corners of Sedona.  Of course we came here for the great outdoors, but every time we tried to get near a trail it was a clog of No Parking signs, No Hiking signs, so I guess you can only get to those landmarks by shuttle these days.

There were some games to be found in town, just not together in any one place.

The local Goodwill had only one board game that was out of the ordinary, and it was Buffalo in a Box, a Monopoly clone for Buffalo NY that somehow ended up in Sedona -- I didn't see the name of the company that made this, but it was not one of the usual Opoly knock-offs.  Did not buy.

The library book store had lots of jigsaw puzzles but no games.

We did find one very unusual game at the Twice Nice Thriftique, for the Verde Valley Sanctuary, a charity for battered women in the area.  We also saw a donation table for them at a local supermarket.  The game was Latice Hawai'i, and the lady at the register said it did seem odd but she thought it was some kind of Mahjongg type game.

There was about a half-mile stretch of retail and dining at the main 89A North roundabout.  In the dark end of a side hallway there was a place that just looked quirky, with a tiny sign that said "TOYS".  I never did see the name of the place but there was what sounded like Grateful Dead music playing, so it lured me in.  Once we said hi to the guy at the register, he told quirky stories about the history of the area, how the old rich guys bought all the land (Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, a Vanderbilt) and their houses can still be see if you know where to look.  There was one super super random game here: the old Peanuts Pumpkin Patch game I had several times looked up on eBay.  I would really like to find all the Peanuts board games, because we love those characters.  Sure, I can get photos of the boards online and print our own crappy versions, but without the full decks of cards, it will not be playable.  There was also some Harry Potter game, but the shop was more stocked with curios, science kits, vintage lunch boxes, some music memorabilia, and western wear.  He described the music as psychedelic western, "a new thing that's always instrumental and always cool", even turned his laptop to show the channel on YouTube.

The little Slide Rock Market would not be expected to have games, since their purpose is to supply hikers with actual needs, but they did fit a soft serve ice cream machine in there and next to the guidebooks they had an Arizona Maze Book with some very clever ideas inside, include one maze made of old petroglyph art.  How on earth did I not think of that when I put together my own maze book years ago?

Finally, the Heritage Museum Gift Shop had Sedona-Opoly (of course) and a simple Sedona card matching game.  I'm not interested in Monopoly clones.  So commonplace, and unless we're very familiar with a city, the roads and business names won't mean anything to us.  Such a niche market.

We're not obsessing over games everywhere we go.  We just like to have some side quests in mind, and a handful of subjects to look for whenever we travel.

We came home with these: