A Love Letter to U.S. National Parks

How an “indoorsy” girl from the suburbs fell in love with nature

Red rock formations with cloudy sky. Text is overlaid on image and reads "a love letter to our national parks." Green scribbles in the bottom left corner and a green postage stamp with white flowers in the top right corner.

I was never returning to New York City.

I was going to live in a van, write in my journal at a worn picnic table, and trade the smell of-well, let’s not think too hard about what the hell that New York City smell is-trade the smell of the city for the best scent on Earth.

Full moon sitting in the sky at dusk over a cluster of trees at a campground.

Singletree Campground

Starry sky at a forested campground.

I have traveled extensively and I can definitively say that the Singletree Campground is the best smell on Earth. (Someone call Dr. Ally Louks.)

The scent of orange-drenched pine wafted across my face as I rolled down the window of the campervan to peek at our new campsite. I was on day eleven of a fourteen-day road trip in a campervan with my boyfriend. We had definitely arrived at the part of a long camping trip where you sincerely start weighing your commitment to home against the feeling of being on the open road. 

Or maybe that’s just me. 

Goblin Valley State Park.

Light skinned Black woman in front of a wall of old license plates and next to an old fashioned gas pump.

You can point to my rising sign (Sagittarius), a somewhat nomadic childhood, or a lifelong obsession with always experiencing something different. Any way you slice it, the wanderlust I’d always known intimately suddenly revealed a new curiosity: camping.

And few people are less likely to fall in love with camping than a girl who has on multiple occasions made moves to escape a moving car because a bug flew into it.

I was not an outdoorsy child.

A young light skinned Black girl on a small brown pony. She wears a white outfit and shoes and has a grimace on her face.

The face of an indoorsy child.

I am an outdoorsy adult and I credit national parks for sparking inside of me this deep and textured love. There is knowing the value of our public lands, nature, and the environment. Then, there is laughing while slipping on large rocks while hiking The Narrows with funny shoes on your feet and a walking stick, while wearing an embarrassing hat. God, it is such an ugly hat and I still don’t know how to swim (remedying that this spring) but the smile on my face is nothing compared to the ball of warm joy unfurling in my chest. I was born to be outside. Zion wasn’t my favorite national park on our Utah road trip in 2023, but it was still special. I learned something new about myself while I was there, which also makes it personal. That the infrastructure existed for us at this park is a testament to the necessity of our national park workers and volunteers. Thank you.

When I put my pack on my head to keep it dry while hiking in chest-deep water I was swimming in gratitude. Can you believe how beautiful it all is? Can you believe how beautiful it feels to be alive some days when you can tilt your face up and feel the warmth of our closest star on the skin of your cheeks?

A light skinned Black woman wearing a light blue floppy hat, mauve shorts, and a pink tank top standing in a river that comes up to her knees with a walking stick in one hand. She flips purple braids over her shoulder with her free hand.

The ugly hat is, in fact, one of my must-have camping accessories.

The Narrows, Zion National Park.

I cannot believe I’ve spent so much time outside in adulthood. Let me be clear that my phobia of insects, though diminished, is sometimes a persistent and unwelcome third wheel on these camping trips. The surprising part is that once the fear subsides and I can regroup inside for a bit, I’m right back out there because I yearn to be out there. Nothing can keep me inside for too long anymore. Sometimes I think of all the summers I tried to avoid going outside and wonder who the hell this girl is in her place.

I caught the camping bug around the same time I transitioned from fashion to the environmental sector and it glows in the palm of my hand like a lightning bug.

Front view of a white small sized campervan among a clearing of tall trees.

Campground outside of Forks, Washington.

Side view of a campervan in the desert on the shoulder of a small road at sunset.

Somewhere in the desert between California and Nevada.

Lightning zips through the sky in the far distance as Jack and I hot-foot it back to the van. We hadn’t quite made it to the Longbow Arch before deciding to call it quits as clouds from nearby storms and the setting sun gestured lazily across the sky with inky fingers. The trail had been one of my favorite hikes to date, and we were still at the beginning of our 2023 Utah trip. The trail had included a bit of climbing, a few makeshift ladders, hard ground giving way suddenly to soft sand, a section that was strangely reminiscent of the elephant graveyard scene in The Lion King, before opening up to flat papaya and cantaloupe colored boulders. We darted across the huge boulders in a weird valley and tried to glimpse the arch from a distance before doubling back to beat a hasty path to the car. 

“You okay if I speed up?” I called over my shoulder to Jack with warnings of the dangers of flash floods in our area blaring in my head. 

White man wearing black shorts and a brown shirt standing in rocky landscape.

A portion of the hike leading to Longbow Arch.

Even as we moved quickly (jogging, really) and I was sure our camping luck was about to run out in a big way I couldn’t help but admire the clouds as they rolled and roiled across the sky. Light retreated, slinking away from the gorgeous red rock around us that had no doubt been carved into this shape by similar storms. The wind whipped at our faces and then the clouds shifted. They remained in sight but kept their distance as we finally came within sight of the van. My gaze whipped directly upwards as a cauldron of bats exploded over our heads in a jerky cloud and I smiled a navy blue smile in the last bit of faded light. Blue hour. In Utah. With the person I love. Cozied up in the full shawl of Mother Nature’s beauty and power.

Can you believe how beautiful it feels to be alive some days when you tilt your chin up towards our moon?

I’m not sure if tarantulas can open car doors, but I was not taking any chances as my hand jerked to slap at the door lock. Especially because I don’t think I’d ever even seen a tarantula in person before. Sure, we were in a silver Camry hurtling down a California road at forty-five miles an hour, but that was plenty close enough for me. I took my very first trip to a national park in 2017 with my friend Alyssa to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. It changed my relationship with the outdoors. It reframed the stakes of “encountering bugs” against “encountering all of that.” 

A light skinned Black woman with long thick twists wears a blue sweater with a yellow patterned robe over it in the middle of a clearing of sequoia trees.
Light skinned Black woman with long thick brown twists hugs a sequoia tree. The tree is much wider than her armspan. She wears a patterend yellow kimono, light wash jeans, and black boots.

Sequoia National Park.

Although nature can be unpredictable, it is not malicious like humans. It asks for very little aside from our respect and gives us much more in return. It is our job to be the stewards.

A teacher, lover, and coach - nature became so much more than “out there” to this kid raised in the sanitized suburbs. I didn’t grow up hearing much about national parks and now I have a running list jockeying in my head of the next ones I want to visit. When will be my next trip? Which part of myself will I meet next? Which bugs will send me running and what view will have me doubling back, not to be missed for anything? Where will this glowing camping bug take me next?

I open my hand and let it lead me to the next time I take an inhale and entertain the idea - I’m never returning to New York City.

Under an increasingly adversarial and authoritarian administration in America and a devaluing of our natural resources and indigenous wisdom, I extend another expression of gratitude to all who are faithful stewards of our beautiful home.

in orange soaked pine scented joy,

 
 
travel, environment, personal essayJasmine Harrisonnational park, campingComment