Amor Fati and The Desert

Hey friend,

I hope you've been well!  

I just recently got back from a 10 day road trip across the United States, going through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and California. My wife and I built a bed in the back of my jeep and hit the road to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Sedona, the Mojave Desert and many more awesome spots! I really wanted to write about my experience on this trip, so this one will be a bit of a longer one, but it will have lots of pictures!

Our trip started on a Friday night after work, and as we got east of Seattle, we noticed everyone around us looking up from their vehicles. When you are driving on a freeway that’s kind of strange thing to do, so we looked up too, and the sky was FILLED with northern lights! We quickly found a spot to camp for the night just off the highway and set up our bed and spent the next hour or two watching the most stunning northern lights anyone in this area has seen for at least 20 years!

The next day we had a long day of driving through Oregon, and Idaho, with our plan to end in Twin Falls, near to Shoshone Falls. We ended up driving along some of the old Oregon Trail, which if you are a 90’s kid like us, you probably remember playing as a kid!

Our 3rd day on the road was a beautiful one, as we started our morning looking at the stunning Shoshone Falls in Snake River Canyon and drove all the way to southern Utah. This is called the Niagara Falls of the West, and it was pretty impressive to look at! The land around this area was super flat, farm land, very prairie-like, and then it just drops down hundreds of feet to this incredible gorge in the middle of farm land. It’s really strange, but what a view!

Kanarra and Zion

Day 4 we woke up in southern Utah and ready to begin our hiking! First up was Kanarra Falls, an incredible hike through a slot canyon where you spend most of the time hiking through the river with water shoes. The temperature outside was around 30C so it was pretty hot, but the water was 38F so it was pretty damn close to freezing! We ended up getting some neoprene socks though and it made walking through the cold water a breeze. This was one of the most stunning hikes i’ve ever done in my life! Red rocks in every direction, a beautiful winding canyon, and multiple water falls and stairs/ladders lead you through what feels like a dream.

On the way back to our cars we actually stumbled across a Rattlesnake and heard him slither and rattle away as we gave him space. I’ve always wanted to see one in real life so that was cool, even if a little freaky at the time lol.

Next stop was a hike in Zion National Park, so we hit the road and drove a couple hours through some of the most stunning red rock views i’ve ever seen. The entire drive through Zion was incredible! We drove up through a minutes-long tunnel that weaved through the mountain, giving incredible views along the way. We eventually made it to our trail head and began our hike in the afternoon, which led us to the absolutely insane view of Zion, looking down on Angel’s Landing. We even made some friends at the top!

After 2 hikes that day, we were pretty tired, but we still had a couple hours to drive to our next campsite. We found a really dope spot in Glen Canyon where we could camp in the wild, but still have access to bathrooms. We actually spent 2 nights here because it was so great, and close to Page, Arizona.

Kayaking through Antelope Canyon

The next day we had a big adventure planned, and one that ended up becoming the highlight of our whole trip. Antelope Canyon is famous for its stunning red and purple rocks winding through a wavy, dream like slot canyon. Most people take a guided tour through it, which is expensive. We heard that you can kayak across lake Powell and into the canyon and do the hike yourself. So we woke up early, hit Denny’s to save time cooking breakfast, and had our rented kayaks dropped at the beach as early as we could.

The kayak across the lake was amazing, it took us about 90 minutes and had some incredible views! Near the end we were paddling through steep canyon walls as we made our way into Antelope Canyon.

As we parked our kayaks in the sand, we began our 5 mile hike into the canyon. The walls on either side must have been at least 100 feet high, and the sandstone had caused the ground of the canyon to be covered in soft sand. I ended up walking the whole thing in my sandals and bare feet.

Walking through Antelope Canyon was one of the coolest things i’ve ever experienced! The paddle back across the lake during a wind storm however, was a different experience! We spent most of the morning and early afternoon in the canyon, and we started to head back mid-afternoon. We knew this time was going to be windy and choppy, and would make it hard for us to paddle against the wind, but it still surprised us with how hard it was actually going to be.

Our 90 minute stroll on the way there felt a lot longer on the way back! I don’t remember how long it took but I do remember paddling harder, laughing at how rough this was, and encouraging my wife that we were fine, this is what we signed up for, and we are lucky to be here on a Tuesday afternoon! I thought back to the Halls lozenge I had earlier in the trip that picked my spirits up when I was feeling sick and miserable one morning. It said “you have fought harder battles than this”.

The entire trip my wife and I were both sick, and we were battling a sore throat and stuffed up most of the time. I kept reminding ourselves that even though we are sick, this is the trip of a lifetime and we have to enjoy it, even if it means doing so while we aren’t feeling great. It can be so easy to let the sickness keep you miserable and ruin the rest of your day. The problem is, most of us are constantly dealing with some kind of issue, some pain, or sickness, or worse, most of the time. If we can’t love the life we are living just because we are in pain, then we are gonna miss most of it. It was at this time that I just said “Amor Fati” and understood the lesson in this cold. I had to accept the bad to enjoy the good.

I told my wife we have fought harder battles than this, and we are just paddling on a beautiful lake on a sunny day. It seems hard now, but we will make it, we will be fine, just keep on paddling and don’t stop! Anytime one of us would stop, we would end up going backwards. It was clear that we HAD to keep going or we weren’t gonna make it.

When we finally got back to the shore we both laughed at how insane that was as we waited for our friends to catch up. When they landed my buddy Brian said “that was HELL!”, and I laughed and said “well I guess you guys should have got a double (kayak)!” as it seemed so much harder to do by yourself. We were proud of ourselves as a team, and it reinforced our belief that we are stronger together!

That night we went back to our beach camp spot at Glen Canyon and had a fire in the desert. We happened to come across a 12 ft 2×10 just sitting beside a fire pit. The only problem was all we had was a hand saw and a hatchet, which meant that if we wanted to have a fire we would have to hack this 12 ft board into smaller pieces before we could chop it with the hatchet. I cooked dinner and then went straight to work, and eventually Brian and I chopped enough of it up to have a fire that lasted us a few hours.

It was around this time that all of these small challenges started to look like they were gifts for us, if only we could see the opportunities we were presented with. The stormy kayak trip was a lesson that we were stronger together, the fire was there if we wanted to put in the effort to build it, and the cold we both were fighting was a test to see if we could still see the sun shining through the clouds. Amor Fati.

Horseshoe Bend and the Grand Canyon

The next day we stopped at Horseshoe Bend on our way to the Grand Canyon. It was the most packed out of any of the places we visited. There were tons of people around us as we walked down the path to the viewpoint, but we were able to find a little spot away from the crowds. I’d definitely say this spot is still worth it even though it’s busy, but expect a crowd.

A couple hours later we arrived at the Grand Canyon, and we cooked some burgers right on the edge of the canyon. We watched a thunderstorm roll in across the canyon and it started to rain so we decided to drive to our campsite and set up for the night, hoping the rain would clear around sunset as that’s what the hourly forecast was showing. Lucky for us we got a pretty sick sunset view of the canyon!

There were also a ton of elk just chilling at the top of the canyon, eating grass beside the trails. I’ve never seen so many elk in one place!

We came back at midnight to look at the stars over the canyon, and hopefully if we were lucky, see the milky way. My phone kind of captured it with a long exposure, but the moon was pretty bright so it was tough.

The next morning we had breakfast on the rim of the canyon for one last look before getting back on the road.

Sedona

Our next stop was Sedona for some more amazing hiking. We went to Bell Rock and hiked all the way up as far as we could climb to this incredible viewpoint from the top. We spent a while taking in the amazing scenery, you can see stunning red rock mountains in all directions. Sedona has one of the nicest surrounding views i’ve ever seen for a town.

That night we found some wild camping out in the desert for free, and it still had a couple outhouses which was nice! The desert here was incredible, the red sand is so cool, and there were tons of cacti around.

The next day we explored the town a little bit and began our trip home.

Mojave Desert

Our first camp site on the trip back home was in the Mojave Desert in California. We found a cool wild camping spot that was one of the nicest camp views i’ve ever experienced. As we were finding our spot for the night we looked up what the things to look out for were and they were Rattlesnakes, Scorpions and Black Widows. Fantastic lol. I scoped out the camp site and it seemed like there weren’t any around us so we were good for now. I cooked some steak and asparagus as we watched the sunset over the Mojave.

This was our last camp site of the trip, as tomorrow was going to be at a motel for one night before we made it home. I can definitely say this went down as one of my favourite camp sites of my entire life.

The next day I drove 14 hours, from the Mojave Desert, to Medford, Oregon. We drove the entirety of California in one day, stopping for some sweet California oranges, and some In-N-Out. Both of which were fantastic by the way!

That night we stayed at a motel in Oregon and had a proper hot shower which was amazing! We had only one more day until we were home, and it had a couple more cool stops to check out along the way.

In Portland, we stopped at Powell’s City of Books, the largest independently run book store in the world. We could have spent all day in there. There are I think at least 4 floors, and different sections for each genre that are massive. There was also a rare book room on the top floor that had books worth thousands which was cool to look at!

Next was a stop at the original Starbucks in Seattle!

And then finally, after 2600 km in 3 days, we arrived home to our cats, who probably barely noticed we were gone. 🤷‍♂️

10 days on the road taught us both a lot about patience, enjoying the good moments even if you’re sick, and that we are stronger as a team. I reinforced my philosophy of life, Amor Fati, which means a love of fate. Not in a way that implies it’s all predestined, but the view that everything that happens has a lesson for you if you look for it.

Loving what happens to you because you understand that it’s just fuel to the fire, the good times and the bad have things to teach you, but only if you are open to looking for it. We can so easily resist the hard times and wish they wouldn’t come, but if you see them as the thing that sharpens your blade, then they make you stronger. Now when things feel a little hard, i’ll remember that little message from my lozenge, “you have fought harder battles than this”. Amor Fati.

 Take care my friend,

- Niko