Big magic in these woods. Ever since I saw the Atchafalaya Swamp in Louisiana, I’ve dreamed of going back and paddling through that drowned forest, but I’m terrified of gators. The Cache River in southern Illinois is the northernmost cypress swamp in the country, a lot closer to home, and is GATOR FREE! We wandered and paddled for hours. It was spooky and sublime. Big thanks to @cacheriveroutfitters for being so chill about our crazy schedule and for sending us out into this big alone without making us hold your hand. We got a little lost, but that was part of the fun.
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#cacheriver #cacheriverwetlands #cypressswamp #swamp #swamppeople #kayaking #kayakingadventures #illinois #illinois_shots #southernillinois #visitillinois #illinoisnature #womenwhowander #optoutside #findmeoutside #midwestmoment #midwestexplorers #getoutstayout #nature #adventure #lonelyplant #stateparks #illinoisstateparks #keepitwild #leavenotrace
Perks of attending a writers conference in rural Tennessee: waterfalls. Even if you have to get up at 6:15 am to beat the heat. Also just a total joy to reconnect with familiar faces from my MFA program and even from my earliest writing classes. The world is small. A writer’s world is even smaller. As a (secret) introvert, I never understood the appeal of a conference, but it’s been so energizing, inspiring, and most of all FUN to find kinship with others in this industry, at every level of their careers. Attending this conference has been a gift and a joy. @sewaneewriters #sewaneewritersconference #waterfallsoftennessee #waterfalls #tennessee #sewanee #tennesseeoutdoors #tennesseemountains #hiketennessee
Once upon a time on the prairie 💫 I’ve lived here half a decade and it’s still hard for me to wrap my brain around the reality that Missouri didn’t always look like a tidy patchwork of farms and square plots of leafy forest. Not so long ago, the Ozarks were covered huge stands of pine, now gone, and the plateaus dominated by today’s farms were once endless vistas of tallgrass prairie. A 65-acre tract of native, unplowed prairie near Diamond, Missouri, is just a glimpse of what used to be here — masses of purple coneflower, coreopsis, wild poppy, insects skittering underfoot, and snakes and birds and rabbits and deer. The grass reached my waist. It’s hard to believe this used to be everywhere. Now so little remains. @missouri_prairie_foundation @missouristateparks @moconservation @mostateparks •
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#wildflowers #prairie #nativeprairie #missouri #missourionly #mophotos #missouriphotos #missouriphotography #missouriadventure #missourioutdoors #missouribound #missouriliving #missourisky #missourilife #missouriparks #showmestate #showme_photos #midwest #midwestisbest #midwestlife #midwestliving #midwestsnaps #midwestern #midwestphotography #midwestgrammers #midwestexplorers #midwestmoment #midwesttoday #nature #lonelyplanet
Woke up to this a year ago today. I have thought about this trip a lot the past twelve months, especially as Reflection Canyon continues to be a place explored and exploited on social media. It both looks exactly like all the photos and nothing like it, too. It’s also the hardest backpacking trip I’ve ever done. It all looks so simple when you plan it out and download gps files, but it’s a different monster when you’re actually out there, 50 lbs on your back, shaky with salt loss, sun beating down on your shoulders, and a landscape as vast and empty as the moon rolling out in every direction around you. I’m so grateful I did this trip with my friend @annavictorialarson. She kept me motivated and energized and, most importantly, laughing and grateful. When we finally arrived, we stumbled like drunks on our exhausted feet, trying not to slip off these red slopes, drank a can of hot wine of each, ate our MRE suppers, and collapsed into our tent. I woke up at midnight to the light of a full moon so bright it felt like high noon. In the morning we walked back out, less hesitant than we thought we’d be, but it was strange to know that the trek was so difficult that we’d likely never revisit this place again. I’m not selfish with these places. I want others to see it, share it, know it, value it. And then I want them to leave it as it was, just as we did. The pastel rocks at dawn make for a lovely picture but it’s that black water snaking up the canyon that haunts me the most. I’ll never forget this trip. I’m glad I did it. I’ll never go back. There’s still so much more to see. @utahunique @weliveelevated @womenwhohike @utahillustrated @utahisrad @theoutbound
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#reflectioncanyon #lakepowell #grandstaircaseescalante #glencanyon #utah #utahunique #weliveelevated #lifeelevated #utahgram #hikingadventures #hiking #camping #backpacking #nature #travel #wanderlust #optoutside #getoutstayout #nature #womenwhohike #womenwhowander #lonelyplanet #exploremore #greatoutdoors #visitutah #southwest
“Anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.” — Willa Cather. I’ve lived in the Midwest for nearly a decade but only now am I finally learning to let go of my stupid and limited standards for what makes a dramatic and worthy landscape (mountains! valleys! arches!). It’s so tempting to call the prairie big and empty but it’s not. Buffalo roamed on the horizon, and everywhere there were noisy birds and frogs and deer and rabbits and crickets and the air smelled so deep and wet and thick with green, new life. I stayed in the park until blue dusk and then drove the chalky unpaved roads back to the highway, passed farmers in tractors working by the rising light of the moon and lonely farm houses on the horizon and grain silos and ramshackle barns. I thought about all the people in those lives, and how a decade ago I would have found that kind of path both unimaginable and unbearable but now it just seems so unbearably lovely because it’s also my own. I got a little weepy. It’s been a years since I’ve felt nostalgic for my own life but the prairie has a way of slowing down time so much that the living present already feels like the past. This place has a plain and painful ache. It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. @visitmo @only.in.missouri @missouristateparks
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#willacather #prairie #nativeprairie #missouristateparks #missouri #missourionly #mophotos #missouriphotos #missouriphotography #missouriadventure #missourioutdoors #missouribound #missourisky #missouriparks #showmestate #showme_photos #midwest #midwestisbest #midwestlife #midwestliving #midwestsnaps #midwestern #midwestphotography #midwestgrammers #midwestexplorers #midwestmoment #midwesttoday #wideopenspaces #grassland #grasslands
