It’s been 9 years since I’ve been back to Flagstaff, AZ, 11 years since I’ve lived here. As the road flew past when we drove, the vegetation going from sparse desert to the thick, green underbrush of the high desert, I started to get impatient. If you’ve ever been on a long trip and, as you get closer to home, you get more and more impatient, you’ll know what I felt as the signs continued to count down. 225 miles, 198 miles, 125 miles. Then, so suddenly I actually missed it, we were engulfed in tall pine trees on either side of the highway.
And it felt exactly like coming home.
Coconino Forest is the biggest ponderosa pine forest in the world. I love the ponderosas. I opened the window and it smelled better than any candle I’ve ever owned: damp earth from a rainy day, countless flowers and bushes, the thick scent of pine that overshadowed almost everything else. I remembered with very sudden clarity the stickiness of the sap from the trees on my fingers from playing in the forest, and the sharp thorns of the pine cones.
Flagstaff itself was an interesting experience. Almost a decade of growth left part of the town horribly unfamaliar and yet completely the same. It was more crowded than I remembered, with more shops and more chains along Main Street. But I still picked out some of our old haunts. We had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, at the base of Mt. Elden, the only mountain I’ve ever climbed.
After lunch we drove to Sedona. Sedona is a town like no other. It’s steeped in both the beauty of the high desert and the trees and steep rocksides of the Oak Creek Canyon. The road down into the canyon is a steep, twisting, 2 lane highway that would be terrifying under some circumstances. I should know. I was in a van once that spun on the black ice, ending up mere inches from the sheer cliffs. The creek itself, usually winding along the road, further down the cliffs, was pretty dry from the creek I remembered.
Favorite quotes:
Me: (totally forgetting about the river you cross to get to Arizona) Hey, what river is THAT?
Mom: (without a pause) The Amazon.
At the wonderful Italian restaurant that has occasionally caused cravings for the last 9 years.
Mom: They use such high quality pepperoni here.
Me: That’s what she said!
We lived in Flagstaff Sedona area for many years. Now in Oregon, I sometimes get a chance to go visit northern AZ. I know the feeling, as I’m driving east on I-40 , and continue to climb out of the open country. There’s emotion when I see the first pine trees which brings tears to my eyes. It’s as if they’re saying , welcome back home !!