Phillip and I took a drive a couple weekends ago and ended up between South Mountain and the Sierra Estrellas.
We stopped for a minute to decide where to go next. I looked at the part of the Estrellas closest to us and asked how long it would take to get there. He guessed 30 minutes, and we decided to head that direction and find out.
But then Phillip spotted some some side streets he needed to explore. So we drove through this rural neighborhood, into the desert, past an abandoned building, and then we spotted a beautiful little church down a gravel driveway, just out there by itself. It was surrounded by a chain link fence, dirt parking lot on one side, mountains on the other.
We stepped out of the car. For a moment, it was intensely silent. Then this pickup truck full of laughing women drove by. They stopped just over the hill, where we couldn’t see them, but we could hear them talking and laughing and working on something.
We wondered about the church, all fenced in but not seeming abandoned. A little bird landed on top of the cross at the top of the sanctuary and decided to sing. We watched the light transform the mountains.
We forgot about timing our drive to the mountain. Or actually getting there.
It’s funny how sometimes getting sidetracked leads you to a new destination.
