On Monday, October 26th, I left Houston and drove to Canyon, Texas, where I stopped for the night. The next morning, I drove to Durango, Colorado, also for the night. As I left Canyon and got closer to New Mexico, I started seeing rock formations and the drive started getting more interesting. The red rocks gave way to the Rocky Mountains and as I’ve had to do many times before on this road trip, I had to constantly remind myself to look ahead and not at the views on my left and right.

On Wednesday morning, I left Durango and had a 3 hour drive to The Needles, one of the districts of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. After having lunch at the visitor center, I hiked to the Chesler Park Viewpoint. Every few minutes, I had to stop and do a 360° turn to admire the spectacular views. At one point, I sat in the shade of a huge rock to rest and realized that the only thing I could hear was the wind. I had seen other people on the trail, but none of them were near me at the time. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the silence, imagining what it’s like out there when there are no humans around.

A few months ago, I realized that I hadn’t been taking time to sit at the viewpoint of my hikes and fully enjoy the view. I would often get to the top of a mountain, pick my jaw up from the ground, stay for a minute or two, and hike back. I would do this because I was exhausted and I wanted to get back or because I was worried about needing to go to the bathroom if I stayed too long or because I was hungry and hadn’t brought enough snacks. I realized that if I’m exhausted, spending time at the top is a good way to rest and recharge for the hike back. I’ve learned that I don’t really need to go to the bathroom as much as I think I do, especially on a hike. And now I plan my hike snacks better, sometimes bringing my whole lunch with me. So in the last few weeks, including at Chesler Park, I’ve spent more time enjoying the view and it has made all the difference.

The hike was 5.5 mi with 960 ft of elevation gain. It’s more than my average hike, but not the longest or hardest hike I’ve done, so it surprised me how much it killed me. I was more exhausted than I expected to be and my left foot hurt. I’m constantly amazed at how many different parts of my feet can hurt since the pain always seems to be in a different place. Because of that, I decided that Thursday would be a more relaxed day. My plan was to go to Arches National Park and only do short hikes that are less than 1 mile to the viewpoints.

On Thursday morning, I changed my mind and decided to go to Island in the Sky, another Canyonlands district, instead of Arches, and do a longer hike at Arches the following day. I’m really glad I changed my mind. Island in the Sky is the canyons part of the park. It looks a lot like the Grand Canyon and it turns out that I’m not a canyon person.

When I was at the Grand Canyon a few months ago, I was impressed. The Grand Canyon is amazing, but my awe wasn’t an inspiring awe. It didn’t move me. At first I thought that I might prefer rocks and mountains that tower above me, rather than tower below me. (I know that “tower below me” isn’t the right expression, but it feels like the best way to describe it.) But then I remembered how much I loved the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I think that the Grand Canyon and the canyons at Canyonlands just felt… dead? I’m not sure if that’s the best way to describe it, but it’s the only thing that comes to mind. I think the fact that the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is more yellow than red, has visible greenery, and a huge waterfall makes it feel more alive. I still want to go back to the Grand Canyon and hike into it to see if having it tower above me makes a difference.

I spent the day at Island in the Sky driving from viewpoint to viewpoint. The La Sal Mountains in the background make it feel different than the Grand Canyon. I loved the contrast of the red canyon and the snowy mountains. Even though I’m not a red canyon person, I was still able to appreciate and enjoy all the views. My last stop was at the Upheaval Dome viewpoint. It’s a huge crater and looks very different than the rest of the park. They’re not entirely sure how the crater was created, but the top theory is a meteor.

On Friday, I went to Arches National Park, which is very close to Canyonlands. My foot was still hurting, but I negotiated with it and we agreed that we could do the 3 mi hike to Delicate Arch if I brought my hiking poles for extra support. I use “agreed” loosely because my foot really didn’t have a choice. I was already being nice to it by not choosing a longer hike. I barely felt my foot on the hike and the view at the top was spectacular. I don’t understand how the arch is there. As I sat looking at the mountains and the arch, I kept trying to find ways to convince my entire family to move to Utah so that I could live close to them and also hike up to that view more often. I didn’t come up with any good ways to convince them though. I’m open to suggestions.

After I got back to the trailhead, I spent the rest of the day going to various viewpoints.

On Saturday, I drove to Boise, Idaho and then I drove to Spokane, Washington on Sunday. I had forgotten that the time would change the night before and woke up an hour earlier than I meant to, so I took the scenic route to Spokane. The first half of the scenic part of the route was beautiful and the second half was foggy. Luckily, it wasn’t foggy enough that I felt like I was in danger.

I’ll be in Spokane for a month. The other day, it occurred to me that I can probably get to a lot of national parks from here with one day of driving. I looked it up and found that in less than 8 hours, I can get to Mt Rainier, Olympic, North Cascades, Crater Lake, Glacier, Yellowstone, Yoho, Kootenay, Banff, Jasper, and Waterton Lakes. Add 2 more hours and I can get to Grand Teton and Redwood. I’m not sure how often I’d actually go to all these places if I lived in Spokane and lived a real life, rather than a road trip life, but it made me wonder if I should be considering Spokane as a place to move to. It’s really far, so it’s unlikely to happen, but at the very least, I’ve decided that I need to plan at least one nature trip per year.