Craters of The Moon Redux: Alone

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When I tell people I prefer t travel alone, some people get it instantly. Others furrow their brows and worry about me, and ask, “But when you see something beautiful, don’t you want to turn to a loved one and share it?”

The short answer is, “Yes, of course.” So I do turn to a loved one and make a comment. The only difference is that the people I turn to aren’t there, if you want to be strictly technical about it.

I walked along the Tree Molds Trail at 8 am, during my second visit to CRMO in as many days and saw wonderful things. Big pines of some kind that grow to a certain height, then apparently topple, leaving bleached and spooky skeleton trees amidst the living ones; lava flows; the tree molds themselves. And I said, “Hey, Dad—isn’t that something? Ever seen anything like that?”

My Dad, dead these eight years, is not the conversationalist he used to be. But he still pops into my head occasionally with an insightful remark or one of his corny jokes. He nodded approval of the landscape before us, and the utter lack of company on the trail. He liked to be alone, too.

When I travel alone, I can have it all. I can turn on The Brady Bunch movie in the hotel while I get dressed, I can sing along to Nine Inch Nails or Soundgarden while racing along Hwy 20 to the park, and decide to skip breakfast and then lunch and just hike, take photos, and drink in Craters of the Moon National Park until I, and no one else, am through with it, then drive on across Idaho.

No negotiation, no ruining anyone’s mood, or having them ruin mine. Freedom.

This is rare, especially for women, who are hard-wired to accommodate, communicate, and get along with others. Being able to do exactly what I want, for exactly as long as I want to—that is a vacation.

Do I get lonely? Hardly ever. The people I love, living and dead, exist in my head (and on my cell phone and laptop email) all the time anyway.

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