One thing that’s really refilled my cup on this trip is how many friends I’ve been able to see across the country and back.

I think it was the Nagoski sisters, in their book Burnout, who talked about the surprising realization that what mid-life crises look like for women tends to be very different from the masculine stereotype of sportscar-buying, younger-women-dating, burning-down-the-bridges. Instead, it comes as a questioning of what we’re prioritizing for ourselves and an examination of how we want to feel/how we’re not feeling that we can change.

There’s truly something special about feeling like you click with weirdos whose oddness matches your own. The most magic places and experiences are definitely not for everyone, but you don’t get something truly special without turning some people off.

As this trip comes to a close, I’m thinking about how I want to write about it in some larger way. What are you interested in hearing about from my 2+ months around the USA?

I took my friends out to the Western Slope of Colorado, returning to the area I last left behind in December 2020 after resigning from the job that I’d moved out there for just before the pandemic hit in a globally massive way.

It’s going to take me a while to untangle and peruse through all the feelings this brought up.

Love to these ladies

They helped me through COVID times

That drew us all close

I’m here in Denver for a few days to surprise a friend who is about to have both a birthday of her own and a birth day of a new baby. Haven’t mentioned the details, because it’s been a surprise months-long in the planning, and I didn’t want to risk word getting out.

After Capitol Reef today and Kanab before that, and the glorious afternoon hike along Calf Creek in Escalante, I’ve been soaking up the awe-inspiring geology for a while now. I’ll be sad to leave it behind, but there’s part of me that’s looking forward to heading home to see how the next phase goes.

A very satisfying sensory day, indeed. Not least of which was the shower and moisturizing lotion I applied back at my little Kanab studio on my last night here.

Between this and Monument Valley, the Navajo Tribal Parks are where it’s at: best managed, best crowd control, clearest visitor policies, and best decision making that puts the preserved land first.