A western journey, with New York as a counterpoint
We left Los Angeles in a rental car with the sense that the road was already part of the destination. Between cities and parks, distance soon stopped feeling like an obstacle: it became the time needed to watch ocean, desert, rock and forest replace one another.
I remember immense roads, helpful people and an easy welcome. At park campgrounds we sometimes paid by leaving the fee in an honesty box: a simple gesture that spoke of trust and freedom more clearly than many explanations.
Grand Canyon, Bryce, Death Valley, Sequoia and Yosemite are not interchangeable stops. Each changes the rhythm: silence at the rim, heat on the salt flats, shade beneath giant trees, granite and water in the Sierra Nevada.
San Francisco closes the western route; New York belongs to another journey and a completely different energy.
