Since this pandemic started, I’ve been struggling with not having a reason to get up in the morning. Not like, an existential crisis, but literally. I could lay in bed all morning reading Reddit; I had nowhere to go. The two things that are most life-giving to me are teaching and being outside, and I lost both of those things for several months. But today, that all changed. I was out the door by 6 AM; I had waterfalls and dinosaur bones to see! I was on the trail to Palisade falls before 7. The reason for my early start was that the waterfall trails are supposedly crowded, and I don’t like seeing people when I hike. That’s going to be a challenge on this trip since I can’t hike very far with my recovering hip. All the short easy trails will be crowded, so the solution is to go early. I saw a family with young kids on the trail picking huckleberries, and the dad taught me how! I feel so silly; I never knew what huckleberries actually looked like. I love how they taste, but had never see
National parks, hiking, canyoneering, and other weird sight-seeing