Simple and Grand

Sometimes we find inspiration in the last place we expect.
Me? I’m an ocean girl. Born and bred near the sea into a family business of SCUBA diving, the ocean is not only my home, but the great natural force from which I draw comfort and inspiration. I’ll go anywhere, but you’d be hard pressed to find a place that fits into my Top 10 list that doesn’t include “seaside” in the description. Imagine my surprise when I found myself in one of my most memorable travel experiences in landlocked Montana.
I was so deep in the middle of Eastern Montana that the idea of a cell phone signal was laughable, the nearest town was a solid hour’s drive away (so good luck getting band aids for the cuts from that barbed wire fence you just rolled under), and the ocean? No, the small stream that runs through the property was barely at a trickle. By all accounts, I’m sure I looked a wreck, and maybe for a moment I fantasized about cool ocean waves. But then there was a musky smell, like horses on a hot day, mixing with the nose-tingling sage. It was suddenly overwhelming, and I had no idea what it meant. Was there a farm nearby?
I crouched down low, scanning the immediate horizon for any sign of life. My heart skipped a beat when I realized what I was seeing. The wind that had been my enemy for the entire day had been acting as a cover- masking sound and scent so that the normally vigilant (and easily spooked) heard of elk didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. I have never been so close to such large wild animals before: perhaps less than fifty yards from me was a bedded down heard of dozens of elk.
In that moment, so simple and so grand, I was keenly aware of where I stood. The view was stunning: the sky a deep azure, trees and grass below me, and a horizon that, unmarred by human construction, extended for hundreds of miles… The area so remote that likely few humans in history had planted their feet exactly where I had as I watched over a lazy heard of elk resting from their nomadic life in the Great Plains. A sense of camaraderie flooded through me, after all, am I not also a nomad? Blood running down an injured hand forgotten, dirt caked skin ignored, the world took on a saturated, hyper-realistic quality. This is what hiking, and in a broader sense, all travel is supposed to do. It gives us a sense of perspective and connectedness… this is why I travel, and how I came to realise that the most desolate parts of the country might sometimes be the most inspiring.