My Happy Places

92 minute exposure of the night sky over Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. My happy places... my Jeep, the desert and the night sky. 

The more time that I spend in the desert, the more I love it.  Don't get me wrong, I love the north woods and I always will.  The deep woods of northern Minnesota will always be my one true center. The desert is a very close second though.  There is a peacefulness that I feel out in the huge, wide-open spaces of the desert that I don't feel anywhere else. It's not any "better" or stronger" than the peacefulness that I feel here at home, it's just... different.  I don't even know that I can fully explain it. 

I know the desert isn't for everyone.  It wasn't for me at first either.  It's taken several trips over the last 15 years for me to start fully appreciating it.  But now it's a part of me.  It is the one place where I can most easily be in the moment and not let anything else creep into my thoughts, distract me or bother me. Of course, the fact that I'm on vacation when I'm in the desert might have something to do with that too.  But, when I'm out there... I know I'm right where I need to be and nothing else matters in that moment. 

"Nothing every really 'happens', we're just here in the center of it all." -Jack Kornfield