So I’m driving up from Durango to Moab UT on 191 north of Monticello. All of a sudden, the landscape changes. From hilly grasslands with mountains in the distance, red rocks, towers, and cliff formations appear. It’s almost like the landscape of Arches National Park, but… just… not quite.
It’s so cool. It’s interesting. It’s different from anything I’ve ever seen. I was thinking to myself, how would you describe this landscape to someone else?
How do you describe something that is so different from anything you’ve ever seen before?
A thought flew into my mind. It’s like trying to look up a word in a foreign language that you don’t know in its dictionary. You flip the pages to find… a definition… using words you ALSO don’t know.
As I’ve travelled to new places and seen new landscapes in the past couple years, I’ve started to form a set of comparisons. Zion is like Yosemite. Northern New Mexico is like Colorado. Santa Fe is like Jackson Wyoming. Some places have no comparisons though… Moab UT. Driving through northern Nevada. Lake Tahoe. They’re data points so far off in space that they don’t have connections yet. They’re the foundations of new comparisons.
The U.S. is incredibly diverse and I’m exited to explore more of it. I’m excited to form new comparisons, but I’m also excited to not be able to form new comparisons. There’s just something about being speechless and in awe.