A yearning to see beyond the horizon.

I like to believe the world is weird and wonderful. But with the all the heartbreak that can come from looking outwards these days, it’s not easy to see. It’s stirred this compulsion to blow my own mind in ways that are organic, that go past the digital veil of pixels and algorithms.

There is an over saturation of information that I don’t want but find myself addicted to…and I have this highly intense craving to be in the middle of nowhere, look into the distance and not see man made things. To try to be blinded by the stars at night.

This is how I ended up taking my family on a tour of 3 national parks to say goodbye to 2025, and welcome 2026.

Badwater Basin, Death Valley, January 2026.

I am city-made through-and-through. I find an ambulance siren outside my window oddly reassuring: there are people all around, and there are things to do at all times. Plopping myself in the middle of nowhere is a stripping back of more than comfort: it’s sensory deprivation. And it’s just what I needed.

I worried too late that my girls, 10 and 8 with a shared passion for being driven to things, may hate this. We’ll arrive at the start of the hiking trail (short, basic loops, but still), and they’ll break into tantrums about being expected to work too hard and not even enjoy themselves.

What I found is this: put a boulder in front of a kid, and they will want to climb it. Give them a trail, and they will want to leave it. Let time be open and unhurried, and they will ask questions, chase themselves or something they see in the distance, or stand still and look around without feeling rushed.

I hope I don’t forget this, I kept telling myself daily, at Joshua Tree, which surprised me for it’s weird and loopey landscape, in Death Valley, a place with beautiful colors but harsh, unforgiving looking terrain I didn’t feel a pull to visit again, and at the Grand Canyon, standing at the ledge made by time and water, feeling small and like there is so much more to see that will surprise me in this world.

What I loved…. I don’t think its space, exactly. Maybe it’s a closeness to nature I don’t get most days working in my home office or racing from afterschool activity to activity. Maybe being thrown into a different time, before we could be reached everywhere, before cities rose and sprawled. Maybe it’s being reminded of what I don’t know because I haven’t seen it all. Maybe it’s wanting more—to feel the breeze in a forest of trees hundreds of years old, to feel my legs ache from a climb to the highest peak in Texas, to feel like I can reach out and touch the stars—and understanding it’s weird and wonderful because it’s precious, like only the best things in life can be.

Advice for visiting the edge of what you know:

Start with something you’ve never done (for me, that was exploring our National Parks - download the app and play with it, it’s amazing)
Read something that kicks you in the butt about it (I loved What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)
Take notes before, during, after - and let the experience sit deeply in your brain (I love a softbacked and ruled Moleskin)
Photograph it all, share with your world, pass on the wow-factor

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Touching the edge of what we know.

A yearning to see beyond the horizon.