It had been 18 months since my passport had seen daylight. Travel restrictions, lockdowns and, frankly, some level of complacency were to blame for my silenced exploration. My husband, Benjamin, and I had traded in airline tickets and carry-ons for tents and fishing poles to take our pack of pooches into the wild.
Four trips to the Sequoias had us on repeat, where we settled our tribe at the base of the river. It was there that we read books aloud, smoked fresh trout, counted falling stars and bathed under cascading waterfalls. Days would pass without seeing a soul, to the point that our return to a still-isolated and masked society was slightly depressing.
Being alone — and together — felt right. I suppose we had the pandemic to thank for that. Pre-COVID era, we were constantly on the go, traveling internationally at least once a month for both work and play. Our assignments took us to destinations as near as Costa Rica and as far as Turkey. To date, I had shaken hands with more than 85 countries, but now I was pushing my suitcase into dusty rafters instead of an overhead compartment.
