When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
The park was named for its stunning mudstone arches, which were formed by sediment deposits and carved out of the cliffsides by the Pacific Ocean. When the cliffs eroded away, these standalone arches were left. Three such arches used to be found at this beach, but one fell during the early 1900s and another during a storm in 1980. The only remaining arch is also at risk of collapsing due to natural processes of erosion.
Read MoreWilder Ranch State Park’s history, like much of California, is shaped by the Spanish and their missions. When the nearby Mission Santa Cruz was established in 1791, the state park area became part of the mission pasture lands. Then, when the mission lands were divided into “ranchos,” large land grants, after secularization, Wilder Ranch became part of Rancho Refugio. The land was split into smaller ranches over the years, Wilder Ranch operating until 1969.
Read MoreWhen California was still part of Mexico, ranchos, or large land grants, were created. The park’s lands were purchased by industrialist Henry Cowell from the Rancho Cañada del Rincon en el Rio San Lorenzo in 1865. In the 1930, California’s Lieutenant Governor William Jeter approved efforts for the County of Santa Cruz to purchase and preserve the Redwood lands adjacent to Cowell’s. Finally, in 1954, Samuel Cowell (the last of the Cowell line) donated the rest of the park to the state under the condition that the county relinquish their land to the state as well, and Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park was born.
Read MoreThis year, the conference was held in San Antonio, Texas. Unfortunately, this was a few weeks ago, around the time the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was making global headlines, but not much was understood about how necessary social distancing really was to mitigate the threat. The conference was overshadowed by this pandemic, with no handshakes, countless canceled panels and panelists, and lots of hand-sanitizing. However, San Antonio was still a beautiful city, so I wanted to share my experience as a first-time visitor there.
Read MoreHappy New Year! This has been a weird year: personally, there have been a lot of really-not-great moments, some amazing travels, some blessed days spent out in nature, and professionally/academically, I’ve achieved my dream of teaching creative writing, published another short story, and finished a draft of my thesis. I know 2020 will bring many changes, some hard but necessary, others long-awaited and full of joy (Ryan and I are finally going to be married this year!), but I believe ultimately light will break through the darkness. So here’s to hope in this new decade.
Read MoreNaturally, this unseasonably warm weather has had me itching to go on a hike in my favorite place. So a couple days after Christmas, I decided we would take advantage of one of the last wildly mild days of my time in Kentucky and check out a new spot in Red River Gorge. So my brother, Alan, my fiancé, Ryan, and I set out to Grays Arch on a 65-degree December morning.
Read MoreMadison, Wisconsin is the capital of the state and home to University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has a metro-area population of 654,230, making it much smaller than a city like Milwaukee, but with the college and a pretty active food and arts scene, it still has plenty to do. We opted to stay in Sun Prairie, one of the suburbs of Madison, because the hotel was much cheaper and the drive in to the city was still relatively short.
Read MoreGrowing up, we would always end up at Boyds Orchard during apple-picking season. Fall was ushered in with apple-cider-cinnamon donuts, fresh apple turnovers, climbing the hay-bale tower, and cartons of apples to take home and make into apple pie. When I went to college, I continued this fall tradition with my roommate, Kayla, and later, Ryan. And I can confirm that in at least two out three of these photos, I am boiling hot because it wasn’t cold in Kentucky yet and I insisted on wearing the most fall outfit I owned.
Read MoreHowever, post-undergrad, I moved into an apartment alone for the first time, and I was forced to confront a difficult question: did my consumption reflect my environmentalist views? This was around the time zero-waste living (producing no plastic waste) was going viral, and it provided a new lens within which to examine one’s environmental commitment. So many of us grew up with that adage, “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” but how many of us actually paid attention to reducing—both consumption and waste—and reusing what we already have?
Read More“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
Read MoreRock Bridge is a fairly easy 1.4-mile loop that leads to a natural rock bridge (get its name now?) and a fairly large waterfall. It is the only rock bridge in the Gorge that actually spans running water, as it stretches over Swift Camp Creek. Rock Bridge Arch is what is known as a waterfall arch, where a waterfall cut through less-resistant rock, leaving the arch behind. Rock Bridge is also unique because it is composed of limestone rather than sandstone like most of the arches in the Gorge.
Read MorePresque Isle (French for “almost an island”) is a 323-acre forested headland that juts into Lake Superior, located in the northern tip of the city of Marquette, Michigan. The park supports over 100 species of native plants and diverse habitats, including black rock beaches, bogs, and forest. It is rumored that albino white-tailed deer can be seen at the park, and their presence has made its way into local folklore.
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