Various Ramblings
Michael Nowak
Cha-cha-changes!
Cha-cha-changes!
Various Ramblings
Michael Nowak
Seeing can mean believing.
Seeing can mean believing.

arches

Thursday Thoughts

Feeling small under giant trees in the Hoh Rainforest - Olympic National Park

This week I was feeling small, but not in a bad way, and thinking about my existence in this world. I was feeling so small because I thought of myself, in my tiny apartment, in a single building, on a city block, on the city layout, and eventually zoomed out like I was looking down into my living room window from space. It is a feeling that washes over me on occasion, but more so lately since the world is so weird.

I usually get the “small” feeling when I’m standing beneath some trees - especially redwoods. When I’m on the shores of the Great Lakes or the Pacific Ocean, I also feel small and insignificant. I love the feeling - it grounds me. When people say water grounds them, this is what I assume they mean.

I think it’s important to find the “thing” that makes you feel this way. I like to use these moments to contemplate everything in life from my purpose to how everything interacts out there. My thoughts drift through all the beautiful places I’ve seen and the ones I have yet to see.

Big trees, big lakes, oceans, sand dunes… They keep putting me in place and bringing me back to reality while simultaneously fueling my hopes and dreams. What is something like this that keeps you going?

Me feeling small at Delicate Arch - Arches National Park - Moab, UT

Feeling small standing alongside Lake Superior - Duluth, MN

#WayBackWednesday - Arches!

My process for Way Back Wednesday:

  1. Create a huge list of possible ideas, become determined to pick something

  2. Forget about the list and just scroll through all of my photos until something just speaks to me

I love to plan things out, but I hate sticking to a plan. Whatever. Here are a few shots from Arches National Park this past August that stood out and whispered through the digital waves to share them again. Arches is easily one of my favorite places and I see it differently every time I visit. Enjoy this week of Way Back Wednesday that doesn’t go WAY back at all.

#WayBackWednesday - Texas to Oregon and back

WBW 9.5.jpg

It was August of 2013 and my other half had a little time before starting back at college so we took off for the west coast. The drive from Fort Worth to Portland is about 31 hours so we decided to break it up a little with a stop in Arches National Park along the way. We set out in my car on a Tuesday night so we could breeze through Texas and make it to Arches in the daylight. We hit Albuquerque at dawn and enjoyed a quick stop for coffee and food. On the way to Arches, we stopped at Wilson Arch to get our first taste of red rock in Utah.

Arches was amazing, as always, and welcomed us with sunny skies and plenty of wind. We drove to the scenic sights and did the little trail by Balanced Rock. We didn't spend a lot of time at Arches, but the little we did was beautiful. Onward! Our next stop was for dinner and coffee in Salt Lake City. We visited Temple Square before heading out for our last leg to Portland.

Our first time in Portland, back in December of 2012, we stayed a classy downtown hotel and and ate at nice restaurants. This time, we stayed at the Howard Johnson (the Ho-Jo) out towards the airport and ate at medium to low level places. We were trying to keep it cheap and interesting all at once. I purchased a Groupon for a beer tasting at a local pub and we enjoyed dinner there. The Portland Japanese Garden was a gorgeous space to visit and was one of the highlights of the trip.

From Portland, we headed west towards the coast with a stop at the Tillamook State Forest center along Route 6. It was neat to learn about the forest and walk up to a forest tower. Our destination for the night was Coos Bay at a Super 8. We stopped at a few spots on the way to the hotel including Cape Lookout State Park, Devil's Churn, and a few roadside viewpoints. The hike at Cape Lookout was longer than we though, as we didn't really plan well for it, and we managed to get confused going back up from the beach. The weather was misty and gray, but finally cleared a little as we neared Coos Bay. Once at the hotel, we ordered pizza and crashed after the long day.

We woke up and headed back north towards Portland. We were going to explore the city a little and then attend a concert the next day featuring two of our favorite bands together. The concert was a Mississippi Studios and the concert was one of the most memorable of my life.  Said the Whale and Kopecky (known then as Kopecky Family Band) were two indie rock bands that played their hearts out ending our days in the northwest. We left after the concert to head back to Texas, with a detour through Colorado just for fun.

#WayBackWednesday - Delicate Arch

In today's look back, I'm going to Arches.  I've been there a few times, but one of the best visits included the hike to Delicate Arch in 2010.  This was back when I was still pretty inexperienced with hiking, so I remember the trek getting to the arch pretty vividly.  We hiked over expansive red rock surfaces, across streams of melting snow, and through snow that still existed in the shade.

Once at the arch, you realize that rock formation you saw from distance is HUGE.  It's overwhelmingly large, actually.  Stand there, at Delicate Arch, you feel small in only a way the best things in nature can do.  The red rock swirls around, there are formations in the distance, and mountains through the clouds.  We were lucky, the sun came out and it didn't rain/snow on us like it was off in the distance.

A year prior, my friend and I camped at Arches NP and hiked to many of the other popular landscapes, but the hike to Delicate Arch always sticks with me.  For more information on the hike, history, etc, check out this link to the NPS website.

Where have you hiked that left a particularly memorable impression?

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