—Mark Twain

Let me tell you a little secret about traveling with my friend Kerri. You’d better be ready to GO. She packs more into a day than almost anyone I know. I’m grateful for this, because I’m a bit of a slug by nature. Each day of our trip was chock full of seeing the sights, driving, talking, eating, listening to music or podcasts, hunting that perfect photo, and exploring anything that caught our interest. Last week, I skipped ahead in our trip to write about Antelope Canyon, but now I’m backtracking to our first day’s adventures: 

Petroglyph National Monument is just outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it was our first stop on the trip. After checking in at the visitor’s center for advice on where to go if we didn’t have much time, we settled on Boca Negra Canyon. It was a beautiful morning, with cobalt blue skies and cool temperatures. A few minutes easy walk brought us into an area of tumbled volcanic rock, and the petroglyphs were easily spotted on the dark surfaces. These markings were created by Native Americans and early Spanish settlers approximately 400-700 years ago. This area is considered a sacred landscape by the American Indians, according to the Park Service brochure.

We also caught glimpses of the wildlife of the area—rabbits, quail, lizards, and what might have been ground squirrels or prairie dogs—they were too fast and too far away to tell.

 Our next stop was a roadside attraction we stumbled upon:

Located in a collapsed lava tube, the ice on the floor is approximately 20 feet deep. The deepest ice dates back to 1100 AD. Arctic algae causes the ice’s green tint.

Where we stayed at the delightful Iron Horse Inn.

Antelope Canyon, near Page, Arizona, is one of the most visited slot canyons in the Southwest. (Slot canyons are narrow, deep canyons carved by water.) Tours go to Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, as well as a few lesser-known canyons. We chose to visit “Canyon X,” with Taadidiin Tours (no affiliation).

After Jackie dropped us off, we descended into the canyon itself, where we were met by a guide. The sandstone curves, swirls, and corkscrews, carved by wind and water into sinuous shapes. Colors range from pale peach to deep purple, depending on the angle of the sun. 

I’m home. My suitcase is stowed, and I just finished the laundry, but I’m still unpacking my photos (all 700+ of them) and my impressions. I’ll share tales from the road later this week. Until then, here are a few photos of some of the things we saw.

Friendly aliens:

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

—Anthony Bourdain

 I’m on the road having adventures right now, but I’ll be back to share soon!

I’m getting ready for an adventure! Tomorrow I take off to New Mexico and Arizona for another road trip with my friend Kerri. (Read about 2016’s Florida road trip adventures starting here.) 

Along with my clothes, books, camera, sketchbook, and journal, I’m preparing for this adventure by “packing”:

It’s likely that I can buy any physical item left behind, but if I leave behind any of these attitudes, my trip will surely be the worse for it.

When adventure comes calling, will you be ready? How do you prepare for adventure?

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Roy Scheele, one of Nebraska's finest poets, has a new chapbook called The Sledders: Thirty Sonnets, from Three Sheets Press. One of any writer's most valuable tools is memory, and this poem shows it being put to work to breathe life into an afternoon from long ago.

In Possession (Minnesota)

Something almost Flemish about that water,

a golden brown but clear into its depths,

the plank-ends of the dock a fading gray

beside it, and a boat moored at the end;

something, it seems to me in looking back,

about a murky bullhead on a stringer,

one of those rope ones you can hardly see,

so that the fish appeared to scull in place;

something (the details start to widen now)

about white wooden clapboards on the side

of that inn or tavern where my dad had stopped,

a neon beer sign staring out through glass—

late in the afternoon, I drinking deep

of everything I saw, now mine to keep.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Roy Scheele, “In Possession: Minnesota,” from The Sledders: Thirty Sonnets (Three Sheets Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Roy Scheele and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Does reading poetry seem hard or boring? Do you think you’d like to read poetry, but for some reason just can’t seem to make it a regular practice? April is National Poetry Month here in the U.S. and regular readers of Catching Happiness know that I like poetry and to force encourage others to read it, too, I  post a poem on the blog every couple of weeks. Every year during National Poetry Month, I also try to share simple ways for us to explore poetry in a painless fashion. (You can see some past poetry posts—say that five times fast—here, here, and here.)  

Reading poetry can be a simple pleasure, not an ordeal, or something that’s “good for you,” like eating broccoli. Consider these painless ways to add a little poetry to your life:

Downloading a poetry app, like Poetry from the Poetry Foundation, Poems by Shakespeare (Android), or Poems by Heart by Penguin Classics (iOs).

Or watch one of these movies with a poetry connection. (One lovely film with a poetry connection that was left off this list is Il Postino.) 

Watch  people reading their favorite poems by clicking here. 

Why not read a poem about happiness? 

And, of course, come back here Wednesday when I’ll have a new poem posted for you!

I encourage you to give poetry a try this month—and come back here and share your discoveries with us.