Writing about place

You would miss the exit off the highway for Sedona if you weren't looking. All you get is one lousy sign informing  you to turn in two miles. The first time I took that exit off I-17 was to visit my high school and see if it was right for me. The exit is very small and you have to decelerate quickly. Turn left. You drive for six mile before you enter the Village of Oak Creek. It is an extremely windy road. The first time I went I was staring out of the front window waiting to see the red rocks I had heard so much about. Turn after turn and all I  had seen were scraggly shrubs. Then the car rounded an especially shrubby hill and I saw the red rocks. In one instant I understood why people crossed oceans for them. Who wouldn’t travel the world to see rust-red stone spires jutting up into a bright blue sky like a triumphant fist. Within moments the rocks, which had seemed so mythically large that I had wondered  if they had taken Atlas’ place holding up the heavens, were right outside my window. I never could have imagined that six miles from the highway there was such beauty. I would have never thought a landscape that looked like it had escaped from  fairyland was so close to the mundane irritations of the regular world. If I had missed that tiny exit I never would have found my way home.