What Follows Us Home
I laced up my hiking boots, their toes dusted and soles painted with Colorado dirt, remnants of a chapter both old and delicately new. As we drove toward Arches, I learned that some in our group had bought their very first pair of boots for this trip. I smiled at the thought and felt an unexpected excitement to share in the experience.
Between hikes, we listened to a virtual guide describe the difference between a bridge, a window, and an arch; how the bright green soil was born from volcanic ash; and how cyanobacteria quietly strengthens the earth, holding it steady against erosion. By the time we returned to the hotel, the sun had long started to sink. But the day wasn’t ready to end. After a sunset dinner, we made our way back to Panorama Point, where the night opened around us. The Milky Way shimmered faintly across the dark sky. Its beauty softened by the moon’s gentle glow, as if reminding us that even light competes for space in the vastness of the desert.
A week later, I returned to Moab, this time alone, to explore Arches and Canyonlands once more. In both my old role and my new one, I’ve grown used to traveling solo. There’s a peace that comes from the rhythm of the road and the silence of a trail. My thoughts move more freely when the ground crunches beneath my boots and my mind has room to breathe. But this time, the quiet echoed moments of shared laughter and the comfort of voices I’d grown to admire.
At the top of the Delicate Arch trail, I found myself speaking with strangers, something I rarely do. We traded stories and in those small exchanges I felt the same warmth that had carried me through the week before. When I finally sat down to rest, I reached for a pear, a gift from a woman whose gratitude had already said more than words ever could. I ate it slowly, the sweetness grounding me in the memory of what connection really means.
It’s been difficult to write about this trip. How do you describe a week that made time feel suspended. Where laughter, sweat, and desert sun blended into something that changed you? I’ve rewritten these memories more times than I’d like to admit, chasing the right words to honor the moments of the quiet, extraordinary beauty of connection.
The next morning, I turned my alarm off at 4:30 a.m. and joined another group of strangers hiking before the sun to watch the sunrise at Mesa Arch. As the light crept over the canyon rim and poured through the sandstone window, I felt tears trace down my cheeks. The scene was breathtaking — golden, vast, deep — and I wished, in that quiet moment, that I could share it with the women who had filled my heart just days before. Connection is such a devastatingly beautiful thing; it carves us open, fills us up, and lingers long after the goodbye.
Near the end of my final day and before my flight home, I drove down Potash Road, stopping to walk the dinosaur and petroglyph trails. My camera clicked not just for me, but for them—the women now scattered across the nation and the world, whose kindness, dedication, and passion are woven into the landscape of my memory. Some trips end when you leave a place behind; others follow you home, whispering reminders of what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself.
