Adventures in Surprising Yourself

Laura and I went to Alaska just to say we did. We met at the airport in Anchorage, rented a car and started exploring. I couldn't stop looking at maps, unable to wrap my head around the vastness, the distance, the real sense of adventure. Three plane rides, four time zones, no real plan. On our second day there, we hopped in our tiny rental car and took the five-hour scenic drive to Denali National Park and Preserve.

Laura lives in Los Angeles and runs marathons, hikes in canyons and teaches yoga. She grew up in New Hampshire and has an appreciation for the so-called great outdoors that I have just never held. I was raised in Central Massachusetts, moved to Boston and have only ever been involved in a marathon if it centered around Netflix.

At the park's visitors center, we boarded a bus that creaked slowly away from the busy hum of the souvenir shops and into the majestic tranquility of the Alaskan wilderness. We sat mostly quiet, trying to capture photos of the panoramic views from the small, dingy windows of the bus. I must have snapped hundreds of shots, but the tiny rectangular screen could do no justice to what I was seeing with my own eyes. Eventually we reached our stop, the random spot on the map that Laura had chosen where we would get out and take in the scenery.

I was perfectly content wandering around the well-trodden paths at the stop site, trying again to capture everything on the small, stubborn screen of my iPhone. Laura, however, welcomed the challenge posed to her by the steep hills surrounding us. There were no trails, no guides, and the potential for a real injury or animal encounter. But there she was, climbing higher and higher, looking smaller and smaller as I stood firm on flat, level ground. I watched her for a few minutes before I felt the mountain calling for me, too. "You're in Alaska," I said to myself. "You're never going to be here again. Don't waste it." I took a deep breath and followed her. Looking back was terrifying. Looking up was exhilarating. The ground below was a distant memory, our travel companions hardly recognizable, our adrenaline propelling us to an altitude that was probably dangerous. I realized that I was doing something I never thought I would do, in a place I never thought I would be, and that there was only one person who would be able to fully appreciate this amazing feeling because she was standing right beside me when we decided we shouldn't go any higher.