I drove south from the Grand Canyon on Highway 180. At Valle, I turned East towards Flagstaff. The land was flat and scrubby at first and then, it turned to rolling hills covered in Ponderosa Pine — tall straight trees, evenly spaced. This is the Coconino National Forest and the San Francisco Peaks stand over all of it. Living in the Pacific Northwest has amplified my definition of things like “peaks” and “forest” — I often question the signs as I drive by. “Really, forest? This is not a forest. I will show you a forest.”
My home ecosystem is probably why I like the wide flat plains, they’re just so different than what we have in Puget Sound. My mind opens up in the plains — “Don’t fence me in!” — and while I can not imagine living in a place where you can see your neighbors coming three days in advance, I do love to visit there. At the edge of where the landscape flattens out again onto a wide open range, there’s a road gate and, on the East side of the highway, The Chapel of the Holy Dove.
The chapel was first completed in 1962 and reconstructed following a fire in 1999. It’s an odd little building and it seems strange in this place where there’s nothing but flat land and a strip of highway and a whole lot of sky. I pulled the car into the gravel lot and opened the red wooden door into a triangular church that looks out into a grassy meadow. It was a warm day, quiet save for the buzzing of insects and the occasional car flying by. The triangular sides are covered as far as a tall person standing on a bench can reach, with graffiti, blessings, pleas, messages to the deceased. I imagine it seemed like a nuisance once, all this scribbling, but now, with so much of it, it feels like it belongs, like it’s part of the character of this place.
It’s only 20 miles into Flagstaff from this spot on the highway, but it feels very, very, very far away.