What is there to say about Rocky Mountain National Park that hasn’t been said before, by the millions of people who have set foot on its famous trails, or set eyes out on its mind-bending panoramas?

I surely said a lot, years ago, when my partner and I visited the Park for the first time. On our first trip to RMNP, we had no idea what awaited us at the trailhead. We had no idea how stunning and magnetic this place would be. We were hypnotized by the splendor, by the awesome beauty of every mountain, the infinite height of every timeworn tree. It was a place so unlike where we lived, with every bend of the trail showing us a sight we could never have imagined.

This time around, we felt a little bit like veterans, calmer and more confident. We anticipated the Park’s brilliance, which we drank in greedily, but it also still managed to surprise us, wrap us up in its wonder, this time on a very different scale.

We spent a good chunk of our time in the Park driving and walking the paths along Trail Ridge Road, one of the highest paved roads in the continental United States. The road took us up past the tree line and into the alpine tundra, an ecosystem that blinds and numbs in winter, but in summer, rolls and flows and sparkles with the kind of subtle beauty that may surprise those expecting nothing but rugged vistas.

The plants in the tundra stay small, grow close to the soil surface, their thick taproots — sometimes reaching depths of five or six feet — cementing them to the cold, rocky earth. The plants don otherworldly names like phlox and sandwort, gentian, mertensia, bistort, saxifrage, and sky pilot. This tiny botanical menagerie sits tucked between boulders as ancient as the sky itself. An impressionistic creation, as varied up close as a million multi-colored paint strokes — and from afar, blending together into a single great green swatch.

Our human eyes train our brains to think “grass.” And I saw many people jump off trail and frolic in what they thought was open field, despite the warning signs and interpretive plaques. But I also saw people crouched down, eye to eye with the wildest columbine and clover, small green aliens peering back with equal curiosity, like the unknown beings at the bottom of the ocean caught in a submarine spotlight.

Spending as many years as I have in Chicago, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the grace and charm in an overlooked environment. For centuries in the midwest, the prairie was systematically mowed down and built on, transformed into a flat sea of farmland, its biological (and human) diversity whittled away. When I look at the prairie, at the chunks of it that still remain, I don’t just see grass. I see a conversation, a dialogue between hundreds of species, a dance where scattered seedpods twirl in the wind and technicolor blooms beckon bumble and buzz.

In tundra, as in prairie, I see how each brushstroke builds the full painting. I see how the parts make up the whole, and how Rocky Mountain National Park wouldn’t be what it is without each ecosystem, each animal, each leaf and sunspot and gust of wind.

On our drive back down the mountain, from peaktop to valley floor, my admiration for this place grew with abandon. From the turnouts and overlooks, I no longer saw sweeping, giant, picture-perfect. Without moving a muscle, my imagination filled in the gaps, zooming me in close, from macro to micro. I now saw the individual elements, bits of life and moments of history that together make the Park what it was and what it’s become.

As we hurtled back toward the entrance, I noticed the low-leaning sun beginning to pull long spruce shadows onto the forest floor. Thick-barked elders waved us along our retreat back to Meeker Park, the sapling spirits housed within them twinkling at us in the afternoon light. This return trip to the Park taught me to see on multiple timescales at once: geologic, human, and the in betweens. It taught me to slow down, and kneel low, to look for what’s hidden but there, and to find what’s long gone and what ashes remain.

I saw so much, and learned so much, and felt so connected to this incredible place. And it’s possible that there really isn’t much to say about Rocky Mountain that hasn’t already been said. But maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with repeating this simple, unfailing truth: it’s amazing.

Rocky Mountain is the biggest national park in Colorado, a state already bursting with large expanses of protected land. RMNP sits about an hour’s drive from Fort Collins or Boulder, and an hour and a half from the state’s capital city, Denver. This is the kind of place where a day or two won’t feel like nearly enough, so do yourself a favor and pick a campsite that’s nearby. There are campgrounds in the park boundaries, though most require reservations well in advance. A favorite hike (ever and in this Park) takes you up to Lake Haiyaha, a gorgeous alpine lake, hidden away from the crowds at more accessible Bear Lake. Though with Rocky Mountain, finding a dud hike is nearly impossible. I hope that when you go, you’ll agree, and then fall in love with this place just like I have.

Imagine you’ve lived your entire life indoors, tucked deep in your comfort zone. Imagine you’ve just driven halfway across the country, a thousand miles, to a new state, a new city, a new house. Imagine you give yourself a few days to breathe, to settle in this new space, to learn the smell of the air, and the direction of the breeze. And then imagine leaving it all behind again, and driving off into the unknown.

Fort Collins was built at the eastern foot of the Colorado Rockies. Just a few minutes outside of the city, past stone farms and gas stations, bookended by high clearance vehicles sporting waves of dried mud cake, we began our climb.

When we left the city, we had a direction in mind, and a campground destination that we hoped would have a spot available for us. That was it. This was our first time, the first adventure, the acknowledgment of fear and the first shouldering our way right through it.

Switchbacking up the mountainside, ears popping with the elevation change, the mood shifted when the sun fell back behind a cloud and the road became a dark hallway. The shark-tooth walls of St. Vrain Canyon jutted up from either side of the slow, ambling creek, forming a tunnel of red matte stone. The gray sky thickened and rain began to fall. We slowed our speed and allowed ourselves the luxury of locking eyes onto each sharpened peak, each cluster of dark, damp evergreen, a landscape so entirely different from the one we left behind in the midwest. When we finally pulled into the morning-still campground – a few tents scattered, a few vans with curtains drawn shut – we jumped outside to listen to the quiet.

We picked our first site of the trip, an idyllic meadow dotted with wildflowers and stands of young aspens and baby pink boulders cloaked in frothy green lichen. It was our first time choosing a spot for the tent. The first time inflating the sleeping pad. The first time choosing what stays in the car and what comes out. The first time filling the bear locker. The first time trying to unlock the bear-proof dumpster. The first time hearing the sound of rain on the tent fly. The first time realizing we get no cell service. The first time hearing a pack of wild coyotes yipping and yowling in the near distance, and the first time truly understanding that thin nylon walls are all that separated us from everything else.

When you’ve spent most of your life indoors, it might be a strange feeling, knowing you’re about to spend the next few weeks of your life outside. Our closed tent would eventually come to feel as safe as a shut door, locked from the inside – surely, a trick of the brain as it was still just a tent.

We were in the elements now. When it rained, we’d feel it. When the sun rose, we’d welcome its orange glow through closed eyelids. When a chipmunk sniffed at the soft soil by our heads, we’d hear its tiny breaths, feel the vibration of its paws when it skittered up a nearby tree. There was no longer an out there or an in here. We slept, ate, washed, talked, sat, read, were in the forest. It was seamless, and it didn’t take us long to settle into the newness and make it familiar.

The first time leaning against discomfort and turning it into contentment. The first time fully accepting that there’s no work to be done, no responsibilities to answer to, nothing to do but sit and take notice. The first time learning to wait, and to listen, and be rewarded for the attention.

We spent the first 8 hours of our camping experience in our tent. A sprinkle turned to a shower, which grew to a storm of varying strength and steadiness. We watched the rain bounce and gather on the outside of the fly, the beads growing with each added drop before racing down the tent’s sloped dome. The tiniest meteor shower, every shooting star a gravity-held trickle. But eventually, the splashing slowed, the tempo of the rain decreased to a distant echo, and we unzipped our tent doors and crawled out under cool, blue moonlight.

Our initiation was over. We were part of the forest now. And it would be tough to pull us back inside.

For the first few nights of our Colorado camping road trip, we stayed at Meeker Park Overflow near Estes Park. The sites here are all first-come first-served and cost $12/night. We made sure to arrive early on a weekday morning since we were traveling during the summer, so there were only a handful of other campers already settled in when we got there. I imagine arriving later in the week or on the weekend would make it more difficult to find an open spot. Meeker is very close to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, so if you plan on visiting those areas, this is an excellent place to stay. We stayed at site #19, which looks like a fairy tale. We didn’t have much interaction with the camp host, but she swung by as we were packing up to let us know the fire ban had been lifted and seemed like a delightful person. I have very fond memories of this place since it was where this whole Colorado adventure began – it’s a great place to start your own adventure.

When we rolled into Larimer County, we arrived at the end of our planned route. Two long haul drives got us from Chicago to Omaha and then to Fort Collins where a friend had arranged for us to stay with her parents for a few days. That was as far as our itinerary went. We resisted planning every moment of our trip, every destination, every campground. We wanted to keep our options open, to be able to spend more time in a place, to change routes if something popped up, or if someone gave us a solid recommendation. Simply, we wanted to be able to set our own pace, which is really what we had been missing from our hectic daily lives back in Chicago.

We imagined the transition from daily-grind to choose-your-own-adventure would be a little bumpy, so the four days we spent in Fort Collins were a perfect launch pad. A vacation before the vacation. Briney olives and homemade daiquiris, dinners on the patio, boat rides on the lake, hot showers, soft carpets, and access to a superautomatic espresso machine. Our adopted parents couldn’t have been more gracious or welcoming. So when they recommended we spend our Saturday hiking Horsetooth Trail, that’s exactly what we did.

The drive to the trailhead filled us with anticipation, up into the mountains and past Horsetooth Reservoir, which was buzzing with mid-summer activity. This would be our first hike of the trip. No weekend emails or private lessons or client deadlines. Just our packs, our map, and the trail.

The path took us up the foothills and through aspen groves and evergreen stands, past soft-leaved alpine natives and high desert pricklers. The change in elevation challenged our lungs and our legs. The unfiltered Colorado sun breathed heavily on our shoulders, and our midwestern bodies struggled against the rugged elements. But we pushed on. And the higher we climbed, and the rockier the trail became, the more determined we were to push up that final, exposed scramble.

At the top, we were treated to a rare view of the valley behind Horsetooth, a view only those who climb these same steps have seen, a view we felt privileged to experience. We braced ourselves against the winds and peered out over the edge.

While meeting the other hikers who had also made it to the top of the rock, the afternoon clouds began to roll in. A few flickers of lightning pushed us back on our descent to the trailhead, down and around the mountain. Through meadows of grass swaying against the rocking breeze, along sandy pathways dotted with shimmering flakes of mica and flanked by mottled pink sandstone. I had to stop every few steps, not to catch my breath as I had done on the way up the mountain, but to let my eyes wander over each and every bit of the trail, at every part of its beauty. I let the gratitude wash over me.

That evening, when we got back to the house, we looked out over the lake and spotted the telltale ridges of that scraggly smile – Horsetooth Rock. We looked at each other, amazed by what we’d just accomplished. When the parents got home and they asked us how our hike was, with wide eyes, we pointed across the lake.

“We were up there. We climbed that. It was incredible.”

Horsetooth Rock Trail is probably the most popular hike in the Fort Collins area. And for good reason – it’s visually stunning and physically demanding. The roundtrip hike took us close to five hours, though if you’re used to high altitude/elevation hiking, you can probably clock in a much shorter time. Bring lots of water (at the end of my two liter bladder, I still had about an hour left of hiking to go) and if you hike in summer, sunscreen and a hat are non-negotiable. The trail itself is very quiet, but try your best to get there early as the trailhead parking lot fills up quickly. Parking costs $6 per vehicle.

Adventure featured heavily in my early years growing up in Los Angeles. My mom probably wouldn’t describe it that way, but that’s the way I experienced it. I’m the youngest of three daughters, and we’re all so significantly spaced apart in age that by the time my middle sister went away to college, I still had several years left at home. My mom and I became adventure partners. We tried every type of cuisine, we took long walks through museums and sat through marathon theatre performances, we drove great distances to faraway festivals and gatherings. The city was our playground, and we took every advantage of it.

This elaborate itinerary building wasn’t, to my knowledge, part of any grand child-rearing scheme. As far as I know, my mom never set out to make me an artist, or a lover of the arts, or a foodie, or a traveler. She just took me along with her to experience things she was interested in. And luckily for both of us, they became things I was interested in, too. All the seeds she planted took root eagerly, and my personality and my own interests began to form and flourish. It may be no surprise to hear that I became an artist, and a lover of the arts, and a foodie, and a traveler, and many, many other things that resonate with her influence.

When I went back to Los Angeles recently to help my mom celebrate her 70th birthday, I schemed to take her back to one of the places she’d introduced me to decades before. The Huntington Library is a historic mansion-turned-museum, and the hundred odd acres surrounding the mansion have been turned into a series of mind-bendingly beautiful gardens. The last time we went to the Huntington must have been decades ago, back when my mom still drove her little white Ford hatchback. This time around we were car-free, which means the trip was a lot longer, but also, that much more rewarding.

We spent most of our day shuffling through the Desert Garden, which spreads and curves through 10 acres of spines, barbs, and branches. Places from childhood tend to feel smaller when revisited as an adult, but the Desert Garden felt exponentially bigger and even more impressive than I could have guessed. On a Monday afternoon, we had the garden mostly to ourselves, and the mockingbirds who screeched and chattered to each other from the tops of swaying, feathery yucca trees. With each turn of the path, the shapes and textures and colors blurred at the periphery, the dusty memories of walking these same trails years ago in perfect focus in the front of my mind. Our handful of hours at the Huntington reminded me of a lot, about where I’m from and the experiences that compounded to create the person I am today. But what stood out to me was the realization and the reminder that there’s no better company for a long, slow stroll among the plants than my mom.

The Huntington is located in San Marino, CA, a mainly residential corner of Pasadena, which is a lovely city northeast of Los Angeles. If you’re traveling there on public transportation, make sure you bring a book…or two. From the westside of Los Angeles, our trip took over 2 hours. But! It was a lovely ride, and I continue to be amazed with how robust public transit has become in L.A. since I moved away. However, I do have one word to the wise for train trippers – you should spring for the Lyft when you arrive at Allen Station. It won’t cost too much, and you’ll want to save your walking energy for when you get to the Gardens. Avoid Tuesdays (they’re closed), tickets are less expensive on weekdays and free on the first Thursday of every month. My only other tip – have fun, and bring someone who loves adventures as much as you do. If that person is your mom, even better.

I don’t often have the opportunity to go back to California, the state where I grew up and lived my first eighteen years. Flights are expensive, time off is scarce, and my wandering eye is always scanning the list of places I haven’t yet been. But my imagination and subconscious pull me back to the golden state often. Remembering the exact shade of firey orange I see from behind eyelids when my head is turned up to the wide, hot sun. Remembering the soft, rolling mountain ranges – cloaked in straw yellow in the fall, scrubby green in spring.

I had never been to the Marin Headlands before, but the sound of my shoes scuffing across gold gravel paths told a different story. The wide trail undulated beneath my legs, legs long retrained for the flat midwest, legs now unaccustomed to even minimal change in elevation. As the trail stretched out ahead of me, a long, winding ramp, it reminded me of what these legs are capable of. Of where these legs belong.

When we started our hike at the Tennessee Valley trailhead, it was late morning and the gray sky felt heavy. But by the time we caught our first glimpses of the Pacific Ocean, the sun had broken through the cloudcover, reflecting scattered white waves across the bay. The vast ocean, almost unbelievable in scale, unfolded indefinitely toward the horizon. It’s taut shimmer was only broken by the hard diagonals of the headlands. The ridges of land inhaled and exhaled, the chaparral growing in surges of green, the sun pulsing in the veins of the plants’ thin, waxy leaves.

The plunge to Pirates Cove began as stairs etched into the mountainside, and then quickly dissolved into a jumble of broken crag. Scrambling down to the beach, I held tight to each boulder, steadying myself against the earth before shuffling deeper toward the rocky surf. My legs shook involuntarily, already exhausted from the slow steady climb they’d endured, and now being thoroughly tested on the swift descent. But they carried me: past a trickling waterfall, spring runoff on its way to reuniting with the ocean; past native plants and opportunistic newcomers flowering just out of reach; past a mishmash of organic detritus, wooden bits washed up from a tumble in the sea; and finally, over the colony of smooth black stones that lined the curved, sandless cove.

Climbing back up to the trail, back to the sandy path that flexed against the hillside and down into the main valley, I felt held in place. Like the roots of the coastal shrubs holding together the headlands’ rocky soil, like the heavy mountains of earth hugging and holding the edges of the sea, I felt the elements that make up this familiar ecosystem pull me back into it’s tight grasp. The native sedges reached out and tickled my ankles. The giant windswept cypress trees sheltered the trail, catching the first few drops of rain before they could even think to reach my head. I poured myself into the bowl of the Tennessee Valley and felt welcomed, at ease, like I had rediscovered a place that felt like home.

Getting to the Tennessee Valley trailhead isn’t easy if you don’t have a car, but if you’re able to find a ride or carpool, you’ll enjoy a scenic trip over either the Richmond Bridge (coming from the East Bay) or the Golden Gate Bridge (coming from San Francisco). It’s a good idea to plan your arrival for earlier in the day, as the trailhead parking lot fills up quickly. Once on the trail, you can choose from a few different hikes. The main trail that leads to the lovely Tennessee Valley Beach is flat and family-friendly. The trail for Pirates Cove is less so, but was a rewarding challenge. If the tide is low and you’ve planned wisely and packed a lunch, you’ll be able to find a quiet spot to eat overlooking the crashing waves. If you didn’t bring a meal and feel ravenous when your hike is finished, head to Tamalpie in Mill Valley for delicious thin crust pizza.

It being January, those familiar with Chicago, even very casually, know what the weather is like on the other side of the window. Winter’s got its gnarled grip on the city, and most likely will not let go until May. In an attempt to refresh and rehydrate, I scheduled my first trip of the new year – a week in northern California visiting friends and family.

Even in January, Oakland’s river of parks and outdoor spaces run green, a deeply saturated green. The trails are alive with plants at all stages of the growth process, fern fronds drip with dew and moss and fungus squeeze through cracks in centuries old bark. Midway through my trip, I convinced a good friend to join me on a morning hike around Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, which is essentially a living native plant museum. My dream come true.

The species of flora in Huckleberry can’t be found anywhere else in the East Bay. Throughout the loop, interpretive plaques lean toward passersby from the surrounding brush, describing plants of interest with an unmatched lyricism. The morning I set out, parents pointed at the illustrated berries and trunk burls, cross referencing their maps. Children dashed down muddy paths, a flurry of energy beneath the serene bay tree forest. I breathed in deep at every turn in the trail, noticing the sounds, the smells, the particular quality of light filtering through even the thickest leaves.

One of my favorite writers, Rahawa Haile, recently reported on a forest bathing excursion she took in the East Bay, not far from Huckleberry. She wrote of focusing on the little things, heightening her awareness of her surroundings, letting her mind fall quiet. Back home in Chicago, I’d never thought of going out specifically in search of a place to forest bathe, but reading Haile’s description, I realized it’s what I do every time I spend time in nature. I get intentional. I walk slowly, probably deeply frustrating those I wrangle into hiking with me. I consider every plant, every color, and shade, and tint, every texture, every level of contrast from brightest white to deep, dark black.

The breadth of plant life at Huckleberry is dizzying, but walking the trail there, experiencing this unique ecological community, is the most soothing experience I’ve had outdoors in a long while. I know for sure that coming from Chicago’s deep winter, the Bay Area’s greens looked greener, the humidity in the air felt more moisturizing, the magic of turning the corner from a deeply shaded chunk of trail into the bright, warm sun – unspeakably stronger.

Maybe it’s warm and pleasant where you live, but if it’s real winter – deep winter, the kind of winter that burrows under your skin and refuses to let go – maybe these memories of a morning under the live canyon oak canopy will transport you. Breathe deep. Let’s take a walk.

Oakland CA’sHuckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve is a glorious place to visit in winter. The loop trail is moderate, though it does include some semi-steep elevation changes. There were a few bugs buzzing about, which I imagine would become more of a nuisance as the weather gets warmer. Getting to Huckleberry is easiest in a car (I carpooled with a friend), but the East Bay bus service, AC Transit, will get you within a 10 minute walk of the trailhead on Bus 642.

Because of schedules and timetables and prior commitments, I knew I would have one full day in San Francisco to spend on my own. So I got an early start. BART dropped me off at the 16th Street station shy of 8am, where I walked past businesses still sleeping behind graffitied metal shutters. I feasted on a soft red pepper quiche from Tartine and bagged up half of my morning bun before hopping on a MUNI heading west.

I’d read that the San Francisco Botanical Garden was free as long as you arrived before 9am, and that’s exactly what I did. I strolled across Lincoln Way, down the most beautiful Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive I’d ever been on, and walked right through the garden’s open gate.

There are a lot of benefits to getting to the botanical garden early.

Before 9am, you’ll have the place to yourself. You can wander from corner to corner, circling around cloud forests and through redwood trails without hearing so much as another footstep. The only people I encountered were staff: quietly deadheading, pruning, hosing down. And where the staff couldn’t reach, the irrigation system compensated. Hundreds of automatically timed sprinklers shuddered from behind wide leaves and brilliant inflorescence. As I went through the garden, I ran to dodge the great arcs of water. I shielded my camera from the unchecked droplets and watched the sun glitter in the periodic downpour.

Before 9am, you can wander the garden freely. Just up a short hill, beyond the sun-loving succulents, I found backstage. Plants-in-process. There were no elaborate planting schemes, or well-placed interpretive plaques. Back here, in the far corner of the garden, young plants sat tucked into their plastic trays, tagged with their scientific names, staked and tied in white plastic hoop houses. Under the shade of a row of giant eucalyptus trees and below the looming Sutro Tower, I imagined what it would be like to work in the gardens, to care for the greenery, to see the early morning sun touch their leaves every day.

That light, that unique light, is perhaps the best benefit to getting to the garden before 9am. The early morning sun is sly and generous, its angled beams streaming and pooling on the edges of silhouetted fronds. Before the sun reaches its midday high point, shadows are long and deep, pushing the bright colors of the foliage into even starker contrast. There’s a haze in the air, most likely still settling dew, that catches the light and turns it a warming yellow green. That light, like the morning itself, is a quiet secret: curling your lips at the corners; begging to be told; pressing on your lungs until they swiftly inhale and when you open your mouth, the sound that’s released is peppered with birdsong.

San Francisco Botanical Garden is 55 acres of walkable garden paradise, located in Golden Gate Park. It’s easily accessible via public transportation, many MUNI buses drive right by. If you’re planning to get there early in the morning, bring a jacket with you. San Francisco is beautiful, but it can get pretty chilly.

I convinced my sister to walk around the Gardens at Lake Merritt with me. It doesn’t take much prodding to get me to spend a few hours in a public park on a sunny day. I’m always looking to take a breath, sink in. But my sister is a different person than I am. She hustles, negotiates, achieves.

When I was a child, I often flew up from Los Angeles to stay with her in Oakland. She’s fourteen years older than me, and when I was a kid, the age gap felt wide and wonderful. Back then, she was always stretching me, pushing me to try new things. Once she tried to get me to run with her around the full perimeter of Lake Merritt, an idea that we both abandoned after just a few blocks of my heaving and wheezing.

She didn’t put her life on pause just because her little sister was in town. I tagged along to devastatingly cool 90s house parties: brightly lit rooms filled with flattops and fades, university grays and grinning white teeth held in place by parenthetical goatees. My mind was always racing to figure out what to say to her friends that were older and, at the time, smarter and funnier than I could ever hope to become. I remember one party where I got a roomful of adults to laugh at a joke I had made — my limbs went slightly numb at the rush of adrenaline that had brought with it equal amounts of surprise and pride.

Those trips to Oakland were exciting, and scary. There was nothing stagnant about my sister or her life. She was an adult, in all the ways I could think to measure adulthood. During that time, the river of new thoughts and ideas and experiences rushed from her to me. She pushed me forward, nudged open the window that revealed a full landscape of possibilities, paths that led to social and intellectual fulfillment, corners punctuated by delicious food.

We laughed over soft, sweet dough from Merritt Bakery, hot griddled patties at Fatburger, foil-wrapped bean and cheese burritos, always with sour cream. I can still feel the coolness of the air in her Pearl Street apartment garage. I still remember how both of our voices sounded when we yelled out memorized rap verses on repeat, the words echoing between the windows of her white Miata.

There are some things that haven’t changed at all between us, even now when I go out to visit her in the Bay Area. I still feel young, inexperienced. I still crave her guidance and approval. During my recent trip to Oakland, I ate up my sister’s advice, gratefully let her chauffeur me around the city, fit myself snug to the corners of her life’s finely-sanded edges. We floated into a familiar dynamic, but I felt my own influences begin to assert themselves, for perhaps the first time in so many years.

I challenged my sister to take a break. I reacquainted her with corners of her city she’d only skimmed. I guided her to and through these bright green gardens, a short walk from the same lake we’d tried running around years before. This time, I set the pace.

It was September, and though some of the deciduous leaves had already dropped, giant evergreen palms hovered above us, absorbing and reflecting the 80 degree heat. We walked slowly through the themed gardens: Japanese, edible, ornamental, desert. My thoughts wandered to the times we’d spent in this city, at this lake; to the history we share; to the traits and quirks that bind us together.

As we drifted through the densely planted corridors, we fell quiet and felt content. We talked low and laughed loudly; the beat of our footsteps falling into time, the sound of traffic on Grand Avenue whistling a familiar breeze at our backs. I was happy I’d been able to convince my sister to come with me to the park. And I think I know her well enough by now to say I could tell she was happy, too.

The Gardens at Lake Merritt are free to the public and open daily 9am-5:30pm. The bonsai gardens have slightly different hours, so check before you go The Gardens are a short and scenic 20 minute walk from the 19th Street BART station. If you’re feeling active, you can walk (or run) around the lake on the paved 3.2 mile multi-use path. If you’re feeling lazy, find a bench to sit on and watch the whole city stroll by. If you have a sister, bring her with you.

Back in September, I took a trip by myself to northern California. Well, technically, I wasn’t completely by myself. My sister and her family live there, along with a handful of good friends from college. I admit, I had a free bed to sleep in, a familiar fridge to raid, and pickups and dropoffs at the airport. The goal of the trip was to spend time with my family and while I feel lucky that I was able to do that, people have lives and I don’t expect them to rearrange everything for me when I’m in town. So I ended up spending a good amount of time there by myself, walking new neighborhoods, mapping and planning, and taking long hikes.

The day I arrived, I put down my bags, ate a quick lunch, packed some water and snacks and headed out to the park. The public transportation near my sister’s house isn’t great but I love to walk, so the mile and a half it would take to get to Redwood Regional Park didn’t scare me. I’d hiked before, especially long distances in dense urban areas (which I believe counts as hiking). It was a beautiful, hot day, the sun was bright, and the sky was big and blue. I felt ready for the adventure.

I started strong, barreling down beside highway on-ramps, watching out for wayward traffic and feeling my legs remember what it’s like to climb hills. I followed signage that led to paved stairs overgrown with ivy, winding up and around grocery stores and law offices. The sidewalks soon melted into dusty paths, the sounds of the highway fell silent behind me, and I heard my rubber soles crunch loudly on the gravely trail. I was hiking. Really hiking! The activity I find myself longing for when I’m in the middle of my cold, concrete city. The activity I know calms and centers me. I breathed deep the smell of eucalyptus and weedy sage. Sandy old oak trees lined the path. I paused and turned to look behind me – and realized I was completely alone.

That’s when the tickle of fear brushed up against me. I was completely alone. What if someone did show up on the trail? What if they wanted to harm me? What if I fell and hurt myself and my phone cut out from connection or ran out of battery? What if I passed out from heat exhaustion? Whatifwhatifwhatif?

A man appeared on the trail in the distance. He slowly walked toward me and I felt my body tense up. I tried to size him up, still several yards away, wondering if I could outrun him if I had to. He padded closer and I held my breath as he came within arm’s reach. He nodded slightly as we passed each other, uninterested, unfazed, focused on his own whatevers and whatifs. I felt the blood redistribute throughout my body, my jaw unclench, my fists unfurl. If something was going to happen to me on this trail, on this hike, on this day, it would happen. But most likely, I would be fine. I exhaled and kept walking.

Many, many years of inherited and self-sustained training in Street Smarts has made me a savvy city resident. Not a minute goes by in my regular life when I’m not highly aware of what’s going on around me, what to keep an eye on, what to avoid. The mistake I made this day on my solo hike was to think I could put that armor down. Time spent outdoors is beautiful and breathtaking and relaxing, but it still demands attention and focus. It requires awareness of the outside world balanced with awareness of your own instincts and capabilities.

The tree-lined trail ended and opened onto a series of steep residential streets. I climbed and climbed until I finally saw the sign for Redwood Regional Park. Exhausted but elated, I sat on a bench overlooking the vast green canyon. Munching on snack packs and guzzling lukewarm water, I listened to hikers’ happy voices drifting up from the creekside trail. Feeling rejuvenated, I got back on my feet and chose a trail. The air around me cooled as I got deeper into the park, giant redwoods hurtling up around me, shielding the path from sun and rain. Ferns grew wild along the trail, covered in months of dust piled on from the waning California drought. There were other hikers that passed me on the way. This time I greeted them gladly.

I’ve done a good amount of reading about and listening to the stories of solo female thru-hikers. I’ve hiked a lot. I’ve never camped alone. I’ve never backpacked at all. The thought of thru-hiking excites me, and fills me with trepidation. I worry somewhat about being completely alone, and being able to handle potentially dangerous situations as they arise. I worry more about my fears of other people on the trail, about whether those fears will be unfounded or not, about whether those fears will protect me or hold me back. I’m not a person who trusts easily, and from what I’ve heard, trust is a thru-hike essential. You have to trust your sense of direction, and trust that your planning was adequate, and trust that the trail will throw the unexpected at you no matter how adequate your planning was, and trust that the other people you may encounter are challenging themselves to trust you, too.

I think a thru-hike is something I’d like to do. My solo hike to, around, and back from Redwood Regional Park tallied in at 7 miles. When I got back to my sister’s house, I felt proud of what I’d accomplished physically and psychologically. And I felt like I could keep going. That’s got to be a good start, right?

Redwood Regional Park is an incredible public land parcel with winding trails and acres of towering redwood trees. There are even campsites available for folks who want to spend more quality time in the woods. The park is easily accessible by car, or you can take BART to Fruitvale Station and then catch the 339 bus. The bus ends at the Chabot Space & Science Center, an observatory that sits right between Redwood Regional and the adjacent Joaquin Miller Park.

Many months in the making, I’m proud to announce that an expanded version of my essay about Los Angeles is now live in the Spring 2017 issue of Waxwing Literary Journal. If you’ve ever asked me about the place where I grew up, or if you keep an eye on my instagram, you probably know that I have a complicated relationship with L.A. I try to unpack some of that in this essay. If you’re into southern California and rich plant-based imagery, read on.