Tulip Red 2 16-9

start blooming: my move to the Netherlands

by europemusingstravel

There’s something about an airport curb that brings a swell of feelings. A simple ledge of concrete, so laden with emotion, family and friends on one side, the sweeping unknown on the other. It’s a hinge, a precipice, the smallest and most terrifying cliff you’ve ever summited. It’s dizzying, the intake of breath, the slick palms, the vertigo experienced from so enormous a height. Will it take you home? Will it take you away? Will it take you to a new home? Will it ever let you return? Anxiety, excitement, joy, sadness, and fear all meet at this crossing, bouncing back and forth with every footstep, sloshing around in the gutters of our souls, splashing onto anyone who may pass. A few tiny, terrifying inches, a waterfall of sensations.

Four months ago, I stepped onto my own airport curb.

At the start of 2022, with a new job opportunity, I packed my bags and boarded a plane with my cat Pepper in one hand and my passport in the other, bound for the Netherlands. I had only been to the Netherlands once before, almost five years ago, for a total of less than forty-eight hours, and had never been to the city I was to now call home. 

In the months leading up to my move, I had been filled with excitement, anticipation for a new adventure, joy for a new experience, new career, new chapter of my life. This was to be my fresh start, my first big life turning point since college, my rebirth after my pandemic hibernation. Yet in the week before my flight, the excitement turned to sadness as I began to cling to all that I was leaving behind, all that I loved at home, all my friends, all my family, all my favorite places. Mingled with the stress of packing and paperwork, and with fresh warm holiday memories dancing at my heart, my soul was feeling crushed and was scrambling to dig my fingers back into the Californian dirt, root down deep, and refuse to be moved. 

So when I stepped onto my airport curb, tears filled with all my own anxieties, dreads, and sorrows rushed down to join the flowing waterway of emotion that ran beneath that tiny concrete cliff. Behind me was everything I knew, I loved, that would offer me home and safe haven. Instead, I climbed that cliff face, the most distressing climb, to walk towards a complete unknown, to start from scratch, to plunge into the mysterious dark unknown and fight for a new light.

The Netherlands is both everything I expected and nothing like it at all. As with every move – especially international, and during a global pandemic – nothing was smooth sailing, and it has only been recently that I have finally felt prepared to call the Netherlands home, for however long it should be.

My first month was spent in lockdown as January dealt with the leftover holiday caseloads. Shops were closed, streets were quiet, people were home. Despite having dealt with this for months on and off in California, suddenly I felt more isolated than ever, across the world from my support systems, struggling to get connected to anyone or anything as my international phone bill racked up, timezones played havoc with my routine, and my internet remained a distant dream due to supply chain delays that held my new modem in limbo. 

With no other options, I sat and read and listened to the winter birds call from outside my window. I heard the rat-a-tat chatter of the occasional passing stranger, speaking in the Dutch language I had yet to grow accustomed to. I listened to the squeak of bicycle wheels from delivery personnel on the street below. In the evening, I watched the streetlights flicker on, illuminating the white striped brick of classic Dutch design. I saw my neighbors dancing and laughing through their illuminated windows, sharing meals, watching TV, displaying the “open curtain” culture that pervades the Netherlands. I was alone in my head, but there was still a world around me, a world I needed to discover and learn about and understand.

There had been many many frustrations moving here – bank account delays, local phone contract derailments, language barriers, transportation confusion, and other agonizing logistics that made me tired, made me want to stay home, made me want to pack back up and move back home. At every turn, I felt like I was getting stone-walled out of this country, that it was rejecting me like a failed organ transplant. It had already chewed me up and now it wanted to spit me back out. This Californian wasn’t ready to be planted in new soil.

After all these obstacles, I wasn’t motivated to venture out, to explore, to try to assimilate into my new home. It didn’t want me, so why should I want it? But I had a signed job contract and a one-year lease to hold me here. I needed to make the most of it. So baby step by baby step, I emerged. Just as pandemic restrictions loosened, so did I, forcing myself into uncomfortable situations in order to learn. Like a fawn stumbles until it learns to walk, I too hobbled and stumbled, crippled with two pandemic years of forgotten social skills and street-smart set-backs. 

For my first two months, I was reliant solely on the approximately two hundred Euro in cash that I had brought with me, as I found out none of my cards worked upon arrival. Even after learning basic foods in the Dutch language, I still managed to buy ten packets of gravy instead of veggie stock cubes. Even four months in, I still haven’t been able to properly say ‘goodbye’ to anyone in Dutch except to thank them profusely, and further to that, I have yet to learn the distinction between the three forms of ‘thank you’. It took me a month to find the communal trash receptacle for cardboard. I have only recently managed to learn what almost all the symbols on my oven mean.

Safe to say, on this side of that airport curb, I have tripped and stumbled and fallen many many times.

Yet, I have picked myself up. I have reached desperately for sunshine.

I found the English section of the local bookstore. I have finally memorized my Dutch address, phone number, and debit pin. I have met my neighbors and even borrowed tools from them. I have found favorite take-out spots for both Indian and Thai food. I got a personalized transportation card and have already memorized my local metro map and tram stops. I have managed to learn the difference between gravy and veggie stock.

And I have also had some amazing experiences.

Every morning, I pass a Dutch windmill from the 1800s and get to enjoy the peace of perfectly manicured Dutch nature. I have stumbled upon open air markets with hundreds of stalls, fresh local fish flying overhead as they’re tossed to customers, huge bouquets of flowers bundled in brown paper for pennies, and Dutch barrel organs playing boisterous music for miles around. I have kayaked in canals and then sat on their edges drinking Dutch beer, only to get sunburned as the day passed by. I have sailed down the biggest port in Europe, the Dutch Hook of Holland, and climbed the tallest bell tower in the Netherlands. I have partied on a canal boat, decked out in orange, for the Dutch King’s Day. I have made American jokes that have confused Dutchies, and I have learned that “helaas, pindakaas” means “unfortunately, peanut butter” but also “that’s too bad”. I have eaten warm Dutch stroopwafel and Hema hot dogs and bitterballen and frikandel and raw herring, and I have only disliked one of them (guess). I have bought fresh local flowers for my home every week that I’ve been able to. And I have smelled the infamous Dutch tulips in their colorful, majestic beauty in the gardens of Keukenhof and the infinite fields beyond.

It took me up until now to start blooming, four long months before I felt I could call the Netherlands a home. Like the Dutch tulip, I couldn’t grow overnight. It took effort and time and a lot of water and tears and a lot of sunshine and love from friends and family afar. Because even at the scariest cliff, the hardest concrete curb, with a bit of water and light, weeds and plants and even flowers will grow. April and May are tulip season in the Netherlands, and I believe I have come to bloom right alongside them. The only difference is, I hope to keep blooming for many months more.

ocean wide v1

in pursuit of newness

by inspirationmusingsoutdoors

Have you ever noticed the salt? The way it sticks to the inside of your nose, tickles your throat as it finds its way to your lungs, gently burrows in with each inhale, bringing the sea with it. Or the tides? How they roll so gently, a sheet of white pillowy foam, then pull back and roar, crashing with white teeth, before subsiding again, tucked in to sleep for a moment more. The way they lull you into their rhythm, the to-and-fro, the give and take, the living pulse of the planet, pulling and pushing, until your own body begins to move in sync, breathing to the beat of this watery drum, tugged with the power of the ocean. Have you ever noticed how the sea calls you home? Drawing your feet beneath the sand, stealing your air to the coastal winds, finding its way to your very core.

Time passes. You breathe. The tide pulls. The sea calls you home.

I’ve just returned from two days disconnected, out in “the wilderness” as my friends would say, hiking, camping, and just generally exploring a new part of the California coastline that I’d never experienced before. And while I could wax lyrically about the majesty of the coastal redwoods, the serene tranquility of a rocky beach at dawn, the crystal blueness of the Pacific waters, or the orchestral melodies of flocks of birds from day into night, the idea that keeps ringing in me clearly, next to thoughts of relaxation and underrated local parks, is newness.

To be honest, I’m not even sure “newness” is a word, although the auto-spell check of my word processor has yet to horrify me with any squiggly red underline or exclamation point of grammatical terror at it, but it feels like the right encapsulation of the feeling I believe we are all in desperate need of, whether we know it or not. Newness, as I see it, is a full-body feeling of something new, something not yet tried or experienced before, something inspiring in contrast to a life of current routine and familiar comfort. Say it enough times, and it might sound like a nonsensical babble, but cling to this idea with me for a moment.

We’ve been living in a pandemic for over a year at this point. No matter where you are in the world, I would hazard a bet that you’ve read or heard about or even thought about COVID at least once every day for the last year. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of stress and pressure and sorrow and a whole bucket of complex emotions and feelings and experiences. The pandemic has changed the way we do life, changed our routines, changed our interactions, changed our relationships, changed almost everything. And while across the world, we’ve experienced many vastly different national responses to the pandemic, and I can only speak to the US response, we’ve all experienced it in one form or another. Am I starting to sound like every opinion article you’ve read in the last few months? Bare with me a moment more. 

For many of us, this meant choosing safety and security above all else. Protect yourself, your family, your local community. Stay home, stay safe. Shop local, don’t travel, stay at least six feet apart in an airy backyard if you even dare visit someone outside of your bubble. In the face of stress and uncertainty, we dove into new routines, replacing commutes with morning walks and at-home workouts, replacing talkative lunch hours with lunchtime TV or midday reading, replacing happy hours and evenings out with zoom (insert collective groan). We clung to these new routines as a sense of stability in the face of overwhelming forces: a mysterious invisible disease, high-flying emotional stress, and even a collective eye-opening to pervasive social and cultural inequality.

Think back to the beginning with me. Yes, there was extremely high anxiety about pretty much everything. It doesn’t take much for many of us to think back to how dark those early days were. Quiet freeways. Empty supermarket shelves. Bad news on bad news on bad news. But, do you remember what tiny sparks of joy you forced yourself to find during those initial months? The creative renaissance of new recipes you attempted in your kitchen, the odd and obscure new hobbies you invested in, the new corners of your neighborhood you explored on your daily walks.

Did you notice something? All of those things were new. New recipes. New hobbies. New neighborhood corners. Yes, they were tentative footsteps in a pool none of us were willing to jump into, because who knew when and where COVID might get you, but they were the moments that brought us some trickle of happiness or enjoyment in a flood of shitty news. And in the face of such a terrible state of things, to bring us all the way back up to even joyful levels, even if just for a moment or two, says a lot.

Now, a year on, a lot of those initial coping mechanisms and small jolts of joy have faded in their impact, just as a lot of the overwhelming stress has subdued to somewhat more manageable levels – a treacherous roller coaster that feels like it’s smoothing out to a bumpy car ride. So how do you find new joy when we are–yes, still–in a pandemic?

The idea of newness, this full-body enveloping feeling of something novel and different, came to me as I sat on Van Damme Beach, a few miles south of coastal Mendocino, knowing by my watch that the sun was rising, even if I couldn’t see it behind the thick marine fog layer that surrounded the isolated cove. I was alone with my thoughts and my self, only interrupted by the occasional squawk of a seagull fluffing its feathers in the ripple of the tide. The sand was rough and frigid beneath my feet, the driftwood I sat on smooth from years of use, the air clogged with the salty freshness of the sea mingled with the fog.

I have sat on a beach like this almost every day during this pandemic. Each morning, as part of my own familiar and comforting routine, I walk along the beach around the corner from my apartment, enjoying the peaceful tranquility of quiet waves before the world wakes up. My beach, as I like to think of it during the empty early dawn hours, is also often clouded with marine fog at dawn, covered with cold coarse sand, and plagued by seagulls at all hours of the day. So why on earth did my moment on Van Damme beach feel so strikingly different, so invigorating, so life-giving, compared to my own beach only a few hours south of it?

This is newness. This full-body sensation of something different. Something fresh. Something new. Sure, I was still smelling the salty air of the Pacific ocean, but this was new salty air. Sure, I was still feeling sand between my toes, but this was new sand. Sure, I was still listening to seagulls squawk and fight over morsels of who-knows-what, and they may have even been the same seagulls from my own beach, but their sound carried differently in this new beach with new morsels to fight over and new things to squawk about.

The joy we experience when we pick up a new craft, try a new take-out restaurant, or attempt a new workout, can sometimes be tinted with hesitation or a resistance to change. Sometimes, we don’t even like them and we get frustrated and turn away quickly, returning swiftly to what we know. We like our routines, our familiar comforts. They are safe and secure. We know they won’t hurt us. We know we don’t hate them. But it’s time for us to turn from soothing to exciting, from comfortable to new. The joyful reward we can experience when taking new risks and trying new things far outweighs the dull monotony of routine. It not only nudges us out of our safety zone, it invigorates us.

When we embrace a thirst for something new and can indulge in a full-body new sensation, titillating every single sense we have, that newness can bring us true unencumbered and exuberant joy. When we stop shying away from the things that scare us or even take the things we’re familiar with and put them in a new light, we can find absolute awe and wonder. Newness is a state of inspiration, a true breath of fresh new air, an eye-opening freedom to experience joy.

I didn’t go sky-diving or hop on a plane to a foreign land. I went as far as a half-tank of gas in my car would allow me to go. Beaches and dawn mornings are familiar to me and I experienced them in a new place. I let every sense tingle me inside and out. I leaned into the full immersion of something familiar but something also so wonderfully new. And the joy I experienced from that hour on Van Damme beach was an hour I would not give up for the world.

Be restless, stay restless, and embrace the newness, my friends.

landscape wide v1

shades of smoke

by outdoorstravel

Breath rasps in and out of our lungs. One step, then another, hiking boots slipping slightly on loose tan rocks and dust. Another corner, turn, another switchback. Harsh wind blasts us as we round the face of the peak, threatening to throw us off, tilt us just enough to send us sliding back down the two thousand feet we had already traversed. Another corner, turn, another switchback. Rounding the dry peak back to shelter from the aggressive wind. The scraping sound of our breath like dry sandpaper against the otherwise serene landscape before us, grating against solitude and silence, wheezing lungs disrupting wistfulness. Another corner, turn, another switchback. The wind strikes at us again, ripping calm from our ears to replace with howling, screaming, anger to pull us down. Dust pelts our legs, tiny needles of pain and irritation as we push against the whipping wind. Another corner, turn, another switchback.

We see-saw up the peak this way, occasional exclamations of majesty and ‘you’ve got this’ motivators floating on the air between us. Smoke from the fires hangs heavy around us, thickening throughout the valley, a dense ominous cloud of ash and burning. The sky is truly orange, rippling as if in constant sunset, only wavering to darken its sour hue. Staring through the mustard lens before us, we are constantly reminded that we are indeed not wearing sunglasses, that there is no glass layer causing light distortion, that this is the world right now: glowing, blazing, burning.

As we near the top the wind intensifies, but we seem to summit above the smokey cloud layers. Blissful blue sky peaks through, air comes easier despite our high elevation, light filters clearly through to us, an unencumbered sun warms our limbs against the cool air. Even as the bellowing wind pelts us with sand and dust, we relish in the normalcy at this peak. We successfully persevered, climbed through a cloak of smoke, on top of normal adverse conditions of elevation gain and mileage, never-ending switchbacks and vertigo. Summiting is sweet, as sweet as the chocolate we share in celebration and the water we drink down as we catch our breath.

The time to descend comes and while gravity helps along our trundle downhill, we quickly reenter an ocean of smoke, tinting our vision once more and slowing our breath. Views become a haze, a smokey mirage in the distance, masks become mild protection from smoke, not disease. Purple flowers shine rebelliously in the yellow air, holding tightly to the mountain’s edges. Green pines wave quietly by – they have weathered far worse.

Chatter flows quickly, freely, a necessary distraction from the darkening world around us, ominous oranges covering the sky and our eyes once more. The air is cool, kissing our skin gently, nudging us to savor its refreshing feel before we venture further. Like on our ascent, the wind returns to its frenzied lashing, but now we take its invisible attacks as further fuel to push us down this mountain.

As we near the bottom, the car park flitting in and out of view between trees and around corners, expressions of awe, excitement, wonder, and pride slip through our lips. Did we really climb that?, we ask ourselves, looking back up the sheer mountain face, ever imposing from our position below. And in these conditions? Smoke continues to nibble at our lungs, our voices becoming raspier by the second, as if the gravel beneath our boots had jumped into our throats, threatening to drown us with nature’s might. The recklessness of our endeavor is not lost on us, the resounding impulse of responsibility and the lack thereof we showed by climbing this peak in a world smothered in fire and smoke thrums unspoken between us. Apart from swallowing gallons of poisonous air, we have been lucky.

With that thought, we gather ourselves in our car, yanking off layers and gulping at the smoke-free air that has been locked away since our departure hours earlier. Muscles are stretched, already feeling the tension of lactic acid buildup and tomorrow’s impending soreness. Bodies relax into pleather seats, eyes momentarily closed, small smiles creeping across cheeks, satisfaction and accomplishment leaking from glistening skin. 

Our drive home brings the weight of the present world crashing back. After winding slowly through the park, marveling at the beauty of green forests and crystalline blue lakes even amidst the rusty shade of the air, savoring the tranquility and calm of this mountain oasis, we reconnect with main highways, an intensity of cars rushing one way or another, running away from or running towards and infinity of unknowns. One certainty quickly reveals itself though: since our departure earlier that morning, the wildfires have grown to unimaginable sizes, moving from potential threat to real and present danger.

Our blissful ease and relaxation is frantically replaced with emergency plans, back-up ideas, and worst-case-scenarios muttered quietly as our car speeds along highway stretches. Our main passage home is closed by fire, so detours are drawn up, excessive extra-long paths home are assessed, ignoring the extra driving hours it may take if safety is guaranteed. The radio continues in the background, garbled by distance and smokey air but volume cranked high on the traffic report nonetheless. The announcer’s voice is strained, suppressing panic, fear, urgency.

At the last minute, our road home reopens and we decide to risk it, imagining the safety of our beds, the comfort of home. Cutting across lanes to our exit, we join the highway, still sparse with cars from its recent reopening. The sky around us has settled definitively into night, dark skies that hide the shades of smoke that still swim around us and press down with a pervading, if dramatic, sense of doom. What hides within this night, hinted at only by radio voices and news reports and lingering wafts of burning.

The road lulls us into a sense of safety. No ominous glow, no orange hue. Only seventeen miles to survive and the first ten have felt almost like any other night. Stillness sits heavy in the car, our voices quiet, trepidous, waiting, even as our car continues at highway speeds. Twelve miles in. Familiar sights are recognized, shops from past visits pointed out. Fourteen miles in. Still no sirens, no flashing lights, no indication that this is anything other than a normal nighttime drive. We continue along another highway bend.

Oh god.

The words slip from my mother’s mouth in the passenger seat but we’ve all seen it. The ominous orange dome that suddenly blooms out in all directions, left, right, dead ahead. Traffic slows but does not stop as every driver pauses in momentary awe and rising fear. I stare straight ahead at the dashed white highway lines, whispering to myself, Just follow the lines, just stay in your lane.

Smoke has begun to seep into the car despite closed air vents and internal circulation. Visibility is reduced to white out conditions, even as a frantic tapping in the back of my skull reminds me it must be ash, soot, burning, not snow. Can I feel heat? Is that my imagination? We round another highway bend.

Treacherous brilliant orange claws scrape at the black night, wildly scrambling to gain purchase and envelope the sky. They lunge and dance on either side of the road, twisting in a chaotic craze, uncontrolled and untamed. Tiny blue and red lights flash from emergency vehicles nearby, like a child’s toys compared to the raging inferno they are attempting to contain. We continue along the road, heat now baking us in the car, blasting on both sides as if we were trying to warm up for winter. Tires can’t melt in this sort of heat right? I glance away from the white highway lines to the center divider. Crumbs of the fire swirl there too, snacking on the tiny weeds and grasses beside the metal barrier. Flames run like liquid along the center divider, tiny waves lapping up air and burning until only charred earth remains. 

Just follow the lines, just stay in your lane.

The air in the car is tense, stressed, straining to stay calm. Breath is held, limbs are still, blood pumps in our ears. We round another bend in the road and just as soon as we came upon it, we are beyond it, the orange glow fading only to the rearview. I relax my white-knuckled grip on the wheel and a collective exhale fills the car. Smoke remains ever present, following us the remainder of our drive home. The fires may be behind us, but they remain vivid in our mind’s eye.

We are lucky. Safe passage, a home to return to, a home still not threatened by fire, our worst complaint being smoke in the skies. Not all are so lucky. With wildfires continuing to roar across the West coast, people, animals, homes, environments, entire ecosystems are burning to the ground. There are many things I could say – vote, believe in climate change, listen to indigenous tribes, 2020 really is a doozy – but for now, just stay safe friends.

road approach 16x9

worth the chance

by outdoorstravel

Water tupelos. American beech. Bald cypresses. Loblollies. To a blind eye, they look the same. But even to my own medically deficient eyesight, each sapling is unique, independent, prepared to spread its leaves against the sun. There is bark that is thick, perfectly pieced together like a puzzle to form an invincible suit of armor, and bark that is wispy, thin, preparing to peel away in the sun, and trunks that stand rod-straight and tall as a soldier ready to be knighted, and trunks that lean heavy, the weight of clouds pushing them down, and trunks that sprawl like spidery legs as if waiting for the perfect moment to stand up and scatter away to a new forest, a new land. Each leaf has its own fingerprint, veins and vascular tissue winding together into a maze, a labyrinth that itself supports life, collecting light and water and air, earth’s purest nutrients.

Have you ever heard of Congaree National Park before? Nope, neither had I. Not until a work trip sent me to Charlotte, North Carolina, and, scrolling around Google Maps collecting ideas for a weekend of exploration before my work conference, there the National Park appeared. Armed with my National Park pass, a simple pair of running shoes, and my ever-constant restlessness, off I went.

Having never heard anything about Congaree National Park before, I did not expect much when we planned our mini-roadtrip in the Carolinas. As compared to Yosemite and Zion, with their sweeping vistas and dramatic rock faces, Congaree has rarely graced the hyped feeds of Instagram and barely makes the cut as “influential” according to social media.

But if they made it a National Park, there must be a reason.

We landed in Charlotte, North Carolina early Saturday morning after a grueling sleep-deprived red-eye from California (let’s just say, I will never recommend red-eyes). Bumping Lizzo and Queen to keep ourselves awake, we drove the easy two hour route down south. A quick stop for breakfast sandwiches and some of the best (and largest) cinnamon rolls we’ve ever had (Devine Cinnamon Roll Deli – check em out!), and we entered Congaree National Park, the early morning sun just peeking between the trees.

First stop: Visitor Center. As eager as I always am to jump straight into the outdoors, my best park visits begin with a stop at the visitor center, watching the educational video and chatting to the park rangers there, the people who truly know best. (And yes, for my park aficionados, even though the park is as young as 2003, the park video still looks like it’s from the 80s.) Sure enough, a park loaded with so much biodiversity, unique geography, and relevant history needed the right start. Cue Park Ranger Riske:

Congaree National Park is one of the last old growth bottomland hardwood forests in the United States. Where did all the others go, you ask? Where decades ago, hardwood forests were plentiful across the Southeastern US, logging and other industries decimated the prolific forests until almost nothing was left. For decades, the area of Congaree National Park was a home to Native Americans and a refuge for African-Americans before and after emancipation, even using the creek for baptisms. Although the park may no longer host permanent human dwellings, its trees will always remain a sanctuary to those who need it. Today, the park is home to over 75 species of trees, including the tallest trees in the world of 15 different species. As a bottomland forest, the park exists in a floodplain which regularly washes away topsoil and brings new nutrients to support its biologically diverse wildlife and dynamic ecosystem. From above, the winding river and oxbow lakes that emerge between dense forest appear like something from a postcard, reminiscent of striking destinations like the Amazon.

After a quick enthusiastic chat with Park Ranger Ray and armed with seven different nature brochures, we finally hit the trail! Since we were only clad in simple running shoes instead of our normal heavy duty hikers, we headed out to the most popular and accessible trail in the park: the 2.5 mile Boardwalk Loop Trail. This trail uses a self-guided brochure to educate hikers via 22 spaced markers about the history, ecology, and significance of various park features. While some hikers are resistant to the stop-and-start nature of self-guided trails, we truly embraced the nuggets of information as we progressively made our way along the Boardwalk.

Eventually, we approached Weston Lake, an oxbow lake created by erosion and changing river patterns in the park, and were inspired to break from the Boardwalk Trail and attempt part of Weston Lake Trail. In our runners, we were quickly slipping and sliding through the mud, but not before we’d walked far enough away from the main trail to find ourselves immersed in the true quiet and natural isolation of the park.

Away from the boy scouts and other tourists, we were able to really listen: birds bouncing melodies to each other across the great green network of towering trees, deep vibrating calls and high sweet shrills pinging like electricity through the environmental grid. Even the trees seemed to speak, their gentle swaying in the breeze creating an endless whisper: a careful shhh…

Tiny animal tracks left fresh fossils in the thickening mud. Moss crawled along the forest floor, draping itself across the sleeping earth. Logs lay peacefully by, sheltering the smallest of critters, while fungi branched outward from it’s wooden foundation. Subtle colors danced along the vascular veins of forest vegetation, sprouting burnt reds and crisp yellows where none were expected.

As we wound back toward the main trail, we suddenly felt more in tune with the forest, paying attention to the various animal prints spied in the mud and the pungent scents that tickled our noses. It was easy to imagine how this space could be called home to so many, be it critters and birds, or the humans who sought shelter here as well.

Rejoining the Boardwalk, we jumped back into our educational groove. Soon, we were arguing over tree identifications and ecological formations as we tried to harness our newfound knowledge and put it to action. By far, our largest discussion centered around the most fascinating part of this park: knees.

Yep, you heard me right: knees. Not your average musculoskeletal joint, however. These knees were tree knees! Tiny wooden pillars, poking upward from the sodden soil, scraggly, uneven, reaching for… what?

It’s as if someone playing a very far-reaching practical joke took leftover bark and stubby tree branches and stuck them back in the ground exclusively around bald cypress trees. Tens of these short “knees” covered the forest floor, looking both at home and just plain odd. And what are they for, you might ask? That’s the best part: no one knows! Theories exist that the knees are used for balance against the flooding forest floor, or to capture more oxygen from the air. Even as I was crouched on the Boardwalk, peering as close as my reach would allow to a nearby knee, staring at it’s unusually rounded top and mentally screaming the question, Why? How? What are you? Reveal your secrets!, a park ranger strolled by and confounded us even more by adding the theory of food and nutrient storage to the mix.

My personal theory? Tree sentience. You want to question the existence of a tree communication network that secretly connects the roots of all trees into one global thinking entity? Be my guest. But I like the idea.

Mentally fatigued, we finished our Boardwalk hike and returned to our car to snack on leftover cinnamon rolls (Devine Deli, I’m serious), before rolling out for the day, a kaleidoscope of colored leaves dancing in the rearview mirror. The road stretched out beneath our tires, tying us back to the forest, while still leading us on to our next adventure.

Congaree National Park might not grace your social media feeds like the behemoths of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, but it should be appreciated no less for its rare and unique ecological and historical significance. We agreed this park deserved more than a brief one-day visit and truly deserved a chance to showcase its worthiness to the world.

Edited Base Image-resized

taking the road less travelled

by outdoorstravel

Thunk. Ping. Krsshh. Crunch. Gravel compressed under our tires and ricocheted off the undercarriage as we inched our way farther down the remote road. Before us, endless speckled grey and brown dirt stretched to the horizon, but flanking it, jagged windblown desert peaks rose into the hanging clouds, enveloping us with their protection and trapping us in their valley. Periwinkle, primrose, mauve – the colors surrounded us in a pastel ocean, the sandy floor sweeping out in every direction, cacti climbing up like coral. Yet we were left driving through dry, still air, instead of water.

We pulled to the side to ease our bodies from the rhythmic bump and grind of the road and take in the vast landscape. Stretching, we scrunched our toes into the crumbly crimson dirt, cool and uneven. Next to us, tiny cholla and chin cacti reached toward the cloud covered sky, dusty spines arching up to catch any stray drop of rain. A moment of admiration more, then we rejoined the cozy interior of the car and carried on.

The car continued it’s rat-a-tat ramble to descend into another valley, opaque fog floating within to obscure the distance from view. We trundled to our next turn, passing our first fellow backroad rider, who waved, smiled, and drove on. Into the unknown, as they say, and we turned toward the fog bank and our hidden destination.

What felt like days, but was only an hour as we slowly traversed the washboard road, quickly turned to forgotten history as we approached the steep golden dunes. Almost like a mirage, the pyramids of sand arched and curved, fine edges at their peaks disappearing and reappearing through the shifting mist. And then, it began to rain.

Rain! In the desert! Only miles away from the hottest and lowest points in North America, yet here nonetheless. Fat drops bathed us as we donned raincoats and emerged from our four-wheeled shelter, quickly soaking our sun-dried skin and unwashed hair. We were swimming through water and air, slipping and sliding as we scrambled up the uneven slopes of the desert dunes. Wind kicked at us, pushing us side to side, and up, up, up, until we stood, half sunk in sand, at the precipice, peering beyond the first dune into a forest of similarly ferocious sand-made mountains.

These sculptures of sand, steep formations of the wind’s power to mold the desert to its will, stood solid, stoic, despite the howling, whirlpool of rain. Our raincoats snapped at us, begging to fly away with the temptatious wind, while we, tears and rain mingling on our cheeks, raw excitement and nibbling anxiety in our hearts, planted our feet firmly in the sand. Without the weather, we might have stayed there all day, blending in with the desert plants who recognized the value and beauty of this landscape long ago and had instructed their roots to reach deep and take a more permanent hold on this ground than we could ever dream of. With one final look at the collective of dunes snaking away toward the horizon, we yanked our hoods back down once more and slipped and slid our way back to the car.

Inside, we stripped layers, tossing soaking shirts and sand-filled socks onto floor mats, pressing numb fingers and legs against hot air vents, giggling and gasping at what we had just experienced. The windshield remained opaque with water, but we knew what lay beyond its surface – steeples of sand, blanketed with a desert rain like nothing we could have ever imagined. 

This was not an experience that could ever be remade or manufactured to a tourist’s taste. This was nature, in its most raw, powerful, and unpredictable form, revealing its character in what some would call a temper or anger, but what we perceived as cathartic release. Only in these remote, wild, desolate landscapes could nature be herself – free and untamed. She was a fierce reminder for ourselves, as our wet hair dripped down our necks, cheeks glowed pink with newfound warmth, and laugh lines cemented themselves at the corners of our eyes. She was wild, and as were we. She existed everywhere, and so could we.

We carried that wildness, that windswept, powerful fierceness with us as we began our slow crawl back along washboarded roads. Hands stuck out of car windows to feel the wind tug at us, tempt us, as we rejoined highways. Sand leaving breadcrumb reminders as we stepped into showers and soft sheets at home. And the hum of the earth and vibrations of the road taking us to dreams of the wild beyond.

While this may be a reflection of my time adventuring to Eureka Dunes in Death Valley National Park, it is also a greater tale of the worth in taking that extra detour, venturing out just a little bit farther, and in general, taking the roads less travelled.

The road less travelled may take hours. It may mean crawling at slow speed, your foot twitching to flatten the accelerator just an inch more. It might be washboarded roads and swerving to avoid an abundance of potholes and roads that don’t even look like roads. It could even be engine lights and flat tires and enough stress to question whether it’s all worth it. But if it can lead to unimaginable landscapes, unforgettable experiences, once-in-a-lifetime moments that you will never forget, then it will always be worth it. 

A road will always lead you somewhere as long as you’re willing to take it.

Looking for more? Check out A (Road) Trip Down Memory Lane, a podcast episode by Women on the Road. Women on the Road is a collective of stories of life on the road from the women who’ve lived them firsthand.