I suppose there’s a component in my DNA that has programmed me to become obsessed with the desert. It was two generations before me when my bloodline found solace among like-minded people in the same situation out in the desert. I wrote before about how my grandmother felt a little closer to God while looking out into the sunrise over a clear Arizona sky. It was after that moment over the phone that I told her that I understood and felt the same way.

I used to visit some really amazing people out in the desert. Smart, funny, and kind people that I visited for years and who have watched me grow. Everything in the desert was always beautiful. I used to travel there a lot, but I never really ventured out into the surrounding nature. It wasn’t until this past year that I began camping out in the desert.

Walking up to, and finally hiking under a clear tree-less sky felt completely different than the bear inhabited forests that I was used to visiting.

There has always been something so incredibly magical about this seemingly barren landscape that I can feel as soon as I begin driving down those dusty desert roads. It always feels like you’re on some kind of epic road trip. Somebody that I used to know once described something as “hauntingly beautiful.” I used it all of the time for years as I began to describe some of the places I saw while visiting friends out in the middle of the desert. Everything always looked so dry from afar, but when you looked closer, you could see the abundance of wonderful life nestled within it.

To say the desert is absolutely gorgeous is an understatement. I’ve happily gotten up before the sunrise to stare out at a ridge of mountains only to lose my mind to childlike wonder. You feel small when you rest your eyes upon it all, but also free.