Dimensions

Mountains. I have fallen in love with mountains, and valleys, and tree lines, and rock slides, and canyons. And I miss them dearly. When you have spent your entire life in Houston you don't realize what your missing. There is no landscape. You don't look to the horizon because there is nothing there. It's flat. It's empty. If you live in Houston, or spent any time here, you will understand just how vast the nothing is. We used to drive hours to go to the hill country. Hills. Big road humps. Did you know there are almost no natural rocks in Houston? Silt. Our dirt is silt and plant matter in all stages of decomposition. I never really thought any of it was odd. Until I met my hubby. He is very vocal about all things, mostly negative things. So he complained, in length, about all the things Houston and this entire swamp lacks. I really didn't understand. Just a mere 3 hour drive is an old rock quarry. ROCKS. There's limestone, sandstone and even granite further north. And hills! We have landscape here. Wrong. There is land, fences, keep out and private property signs. We might have landscape hours away, but it's not ours. Texans don't have landscape, some land owners have a little bit. But there's Big Bend, which is about a day away. I've never been. It might be really beautiful, but I really have no desire to spend a week or more there to hike. Maybe I haven't seen the right pictures, articles, hike guides. Maybe not. Then my hubs takes me to Arizona. All I could think about was fucking desert. All that sand and no damn beach. Below mountains start appearing and he's telling me all about them. They're beautiful. I want to see them all. Then we land in the desert. Sand, cactus, and beyond that is peaks. So incredible. My entire world just had another dimension added. Out there. Amazing. This is not my first time to leave Texas. I've been all over the south from Mexico to Georgia. Nothing compares. Perhaps it was my age at the time, or how distracted I was with other things when visiting these places. But Arizona mesmerized me. A short trip north from Phoenix and we were in Sedona. The layers upon layers in the stones that told eons of secrets I didn't understand, the canyon hike from desert to pine, the jeep trail to the top of a butte where the stars suddenly were infinite, the lynx that paused to peer at us on the step ride down... I was in love. And needed more. A 9 hour hike was a trial for us. We live at sea level, Sedona is 4500 or so above that. It was early spring and blessedly cool, but we forgot to hydrate. There is no comparison to mountain bike trails, what we had in Houston to prepare, and canyon trails. We were sore, foot sore, dehydrated and a bit oxygen deprived. But I still needed to see it all. Further north to Flagstaff where snow on the ground had all the trails closed, then across the rim where the snow was still feet deep in the shade. Snow. Lots of it. We stopped multiple times, played in the snow, took mesmerising pictures and kept heading north. The Grand Canyon. Go. Don't hesitate, put it on your bucket list. Add Sedona Canyon hike & Flagstaff mountain hike to that list. I climbed out to the furthest ledge I could find and just stared. There was snow on the canyon walls where the sun rarely reached. Plants and succulents hanging onto rocks. The valley was vast and swept me away. Unfortunately we were not able to do any hikes down because we were still recovering from our hike and did not feel we could spend the time we wanted to explore. There were many other places we stopped, but those 3 changed me. It was only 3 days, 2 nights. Just the opportunities that a state with so much state and national park provide is astounding to a Texas girl. Add in the fact that you can drive 3.5 hours from desert to the tree line to the Grand Canyon, being able to stop, hike, camp & explore along the way, it turns into a life altering experience. We don't visit enough, especially now with a Sprite. However soon we will be moving to somewhere grand, awe inspiring, accessible and I can't wait. Motivation.