When I looked out the plane window, all I saw was desert. I certainly hadn’t expected Colorado to look so barren after all I had heard of its natural beauty. Being from rural Pennsylvania, I can say that I’m used to being amongst the mountains. In fact, a few years ago, I had a mountain range tattooed onto the side of my foot – the peaks not quite reaching the top, the valleys not quite reaching the bottom – as a reminder of the connection I felt surrounded by them. The mountains were my main motivator when choosing to visit Colorado with my husband on our first anniversary. When we arrived in Denver, I expected to see similarities to the mountain ranges brushed onto my foot. Instead, we arrived in a city that looked much too much like all the other cities I’ve visited a thousand times before. Though it was certainly quieter than the cities I’ve grown used to on the east coast, the skyscrapers weren’t the reason I was there. Fortunately, I knew I would eventually find the mountains I was searching for, but it would take a rental car and a GPS to finally discover them.

A few days into our trip, we made our way closer to the nature I was craving – though instead of the trees, we found ourselves surrounded by giant, red, rock formations. Neither my husband or I had ever been to an EDM concert before, but we love dancing and a good adventure (plus, seeing a show at Red Rocks has also been on my bucket list). It was a strange thing to witness – the sky lights propped up on the rocks, leading cars down a path to a paved parking lot outside of the amphitheater. I can remember thinking how interesting it was to see the ways humans and nature interacted with each other as we walked towards the venue. All night long, I would watch human and nature interact in peculiar ways. When walking up the stone staircase towards security and staring at the beauty surrounding me, a woman’s pills spilled out of her fanny pack in front of me, jumping down each stair in silence. Later, as my husband and I stared into the distance, watching the flashing lights dancing through the air over the horizon, the middle-aged man beside us would turn to ask, “Would you like to try any of these curried vegetables?” and then, “Do you happen to have any shrooms?” after we had placed the sour bits of cauliflower into our mouths. As we anticipated, Red Rocks proved to be the best venue we’d ever experienced. Despite not knowing any of the music, the bass jumping off the rocks surrounding us connected us to the beats in a way we hadn’t previously thought possible. For hours, we swayed and danced along with the crowd, taking in the beauty surrounding us.

The following day, we finally made our way to the mountains we had come searching for. Interestingly, Rocky Mountain National Park had guards limiting portions of the mountains, stating they were requiring reservations to hike in these places due to overcrowding. Disappointed that we couldn’t complete the hike I wanted to take, my husband drove our rental car up another side of the mountain all the way to the peak, stopping along the way for pictures of the scenery. When we reached the top, we were breathless – either from the view or the altitude – and we walked around the sidewalk paths that had been created for tourists. The view was incredible, filled with blue skies and the lush, green needles of the conifers. We took notice to the way that some of these pine trees only grew needles on one side, protecting themselves from the harsh winds on the opposite side. It was astonishing to see the way that even the trees found ways to persevere in conditions that were less than ideal. Eventually, we decided to make our way back down the side of the mountain and into the small town we had passed on our way to visit the park. It was here, in this tiny little mountain town, that we stopped to eat giant burritos on a restaurant rooftop and also here where I stood on the sidewalk next to an open field filled with elk. One bull chased the cows through the field, grunting when they got too far away or when they declined his advances. It felt magical to end my trip watching these ethereal beings so closely. I wondered what they must have thought of me, standing in the group of people who had suddenly surrounded me, barefoot, with their home painted across my feet.