"Only that day dawns to which we are awake."

- Henry David Thoreau

Despite all the dreaming, planning and packing, the trip never felt real, not until the day of departure. Saturday morning, September 24th, I loaded up my car, asked Ben to take my picture, and headed out.  I drove to a suburb in the Southwest metro to run a few last-minute errands. This felt no different than my drive to work, even as I waited at Target to pay for the first road atlas I have owned since high school. When would it hit me? Would I get excited, terrified, hit the gas pedal or panic and feel the urge to turn around? I felt like I was in a dream and kept waiting for the moment when I would inevitably wake up.

Somewhere just outside of the metro, the landscape began to flatten, widen, and open up into a broad expanse. The cookie cutter fabric of suburbia made way for flat, open fields of corn and hay. I pulled over at one of the first farms to take a picture, marking the official beginning of my journey. This photo, capturing the multiple structures that make up the farm, the field in front and a cloudy sky above, captures a tipping point - I was finally on the open road. The city was behind me and the West ahead.

In that moment, it finally hit me. This wasn't a dream, this was something amazing, something huge I was doing just for me. I turned 30 this year, and am determined to take back my life in this new decade. The last two years of my 20's were filled with anticipation, loss, and grief. I blinked and those years were gone, with little to show for them. I want to have choice again. With this trip, I made the choice to explore, to spend time in nature, to take a pause, time by myself and to spend time with people I love. I chose to live.

That day I drove 9 hours from Minnesota to South Dakota. The road was flat, with expanses of field and sky, and then prairie and sky. Flocks of birds would rise in front of me as a group, dance fluidly, organically, into a series of different formations, and finally fly above my view. I drove primarily in silence, eliminating auditory input so I could soak in the visual. A field of sunflowers past their peak, no longer following the sun. Fields with rolled bales of hay positioned just so, their flat sides facing the road, perfect circles of gold. A train that seemed to go on forever, cars with graffiti art acquired from a diversity of urban destinations. Crisp, white wind turbines spun in families, catching the light as they twirled into the horizon. 

Turning off the main highway, toward SD 240 and the Badlands, I could feel the landscape begin to change. The terrain became rocky and suddenly, formations that felt like science fiction arose in front of me, the perfect backdrop for a story line from another planet. I stopped at several overlooks as I made my way through the park and hiked two shorter hikes, exploring as much as I could before dark. The dimpled rock beneath my feet felt closer to what I would expect to see on the moon than on Earth. Signs warned of rattlesnakes, but I only encountered deer and bison lingering by the road. I made my way through the park, and the rock formations began to flatten. Soon I was in the prairie, accompanied by no one but bison as I headed toward Sage Creek Campground. I set up my tent in the dark, grateful for my headlamp and for the peace I was already beginning to feel.