The Wrong Direction
I spent two years studying film production. I won't go into the details of why it was wrong some things you just know. The thought of another semester made something in me go quiet in the wrong way.
I transferred mid-summer to a Parks and Recreation program. The relief was immediate, which told me everything.
The degree wasn't the point the fieldwork was. Outdoor labor is specific. You can see what you did at the end of the day. A trail that wasn't clear is now clear. There's a before and an after, and you made it happen with your hands.
Two internships. Two supervisors who had never met each other. Both gave me the same feedback independently, quick learner, adaptable, natural leader, coachable. Imposter syndrome doesn't care about evidence. But the evaluations existed, and they said what they said.
An Instagram Ad
The federal jobs I applied for didn't come through. The state jobs didn't either. Some came back as rejections. Some just never came back.
A wildland firefighting contractor appeared in my Instagram feed. Before I called, I read every word on their website. When I did call, the person either had an answer or told me exactly where to find one.
I signed up. I started working through the online certifications one by one. I committed to something uncertain and kept going.
Kansas
The drive out was 3,100 miles.
I had been going since Kentucky, packing, planning, finishing the semester, tying things off. Always somewhere to be next. The momentum of having things to do carried me across most of the country before it finally ran out.
It ran out in Kansas. Tuesday night. A state park campsite on a lake. The fee envelope system — you fill out the paperwork yourself and drop cash in a box outside the office, and they still charge you a processing fee for the privilege.
I set up my hammock and laid there. Nowhere to be for days. No one expecting anything.
That was the first moment the trip became real. Not a plan I was executing. A thing I was actually doing.
Colorado
Colorado Springs sits at 6,400 feet. I found this out the hard way trying to run at the same pace I hold in Kentucky. The altitude had other plans.
The next day, a friend in town was putting on a furry event at a local arcade. I went. It was exactly as chaotic and good-natured as it sounds, and the kind of thing that only happens when you're somewhere with no schedule and someone you know happens to be there.
Rocky Mountain National Park, I pulled in at 2am, parked at a trailhead, and slept in my car. Way more comfortable than expected. Woke up at 8:30 to mountains. The drive to get there beats anything I've hiked in Kentucky. I was on an interstate thinking what is this, in the best possible way.
Wyoming
A gas station somewhere in Wyoming. I pulled up to the pump and there was a US Forest Service Type 3 fire engine parked next to me.
I had only seen them in training materials — diagrams, equipment lists, photos where everything is labeled. Months of studying something and then there it is, running, in a parking lot. Turns out the green is exactly as good in person.
I wanted to touch it. I didn't. Got back in my car and kept driving.
Grand Tetons & Yellowstone
Driving to Yellowstone, I passed through the Grand Tetons — a park I hadn't even realized was in this part of the country. I stopped on the west side for a photo with the park sign (image below), and a stranger asked what I was doing out here. I told him wildland firefighting. He went quiet for a second, then as I was leaving said, "I wish you luck with the fires."
Which makes it sound like I'm starting them.
Yellowstone hit differently than the rest of it. Somewhere in the middle of the park, the weight of everything landed at once. The distance from home. The size of what was ahead. All of it arriving at the same time in a place that felt too large to process.
The bar at one of the park lodges was open. I sat down and ended up next to a seasonal employee clearly autistic, clearly brilliant who spent twenty minutes explaining cosmetic chemistry and their plans for grad school. I got to hear about seasonal work in the parks, what it's actually like, what it takes. Across the bar, three waitstaff were debriefing a badly organized drug test. Drama with no context, people I'd never see again, my favorite kind.
The next morning I was back on the road, pushing toward Oregon. Any distance now meant getting there sooner.
Oregon, 1am
I got to Oregon and thought: how have I not moved here sooner.
I had driven 3,100 miles. Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Yellowstone, and then the Columbia River Gorge at freeway speed through a windshield — that drive already beat anything I had ever hiked in Kentucky. The scale is different. The whole thing is different.
I had a few days before anything was required of me. Ate cheap food, reorganized the car, found trails on a mapping app that weren't on any popular list, tried to understand where I had landed.
On I-84, east of Portland, I had seen smoke rising in the hills. I pulled up the map.
The Junction Fire. Active. Burning.
I pulled into my motel and went to find gas. An attendant came walking up fast as I stepped out of the car.
"Do you want help or not?"
I sat there for a moment genuinely confused.
"No."
Oregon doesn't let you pump your own gas. It's a law. The attendant wasn't being strange. That was just how things worked here.
First Oregon moment. It cost me nothing except a few seconds of confusion and the reminder that I had a lot to learn about where I'd ended up.