From My Journal: 1,800 Miles Out West
The American West
The American West has its own rhythm…vast, cinematic, endlessly layered. Over the course of 1,800 miles and six national parks, we found ourselves guided by nature’s raw design: towering granite, ancient forests, and skies so dark they revealed constellations like jewels. It was a journey into scale, silence, and beauty. One that will remain etched into my memory.
We began in San Francisco, where my first stop was Yank Sing, a third-generation family-owned dim sum restaurant. It is everything I love about dim sum: generous, communal, bustling with flavor and history. We stayed at the One Hotel, a sanctuary at the edge of the city, with views that embrace both water and skyline. San Francisco was a whirlwind of sightseeing, trolley rides, and meals punctuated by creativity. We ended our short stay with dinner at San Ho Won — an exquisite note of warmth and modern Korean cooking before setting out eastward for Yosemite.
Arriving at Yosemite feels like stepping into a cathedral sculpted by the earth itself. We stayed at Firefall Ranch in stand-alone cabins with evenings lit by bonfires. Days were spent riding and hiking, following our guide, Chris, into the groves of ancient sequoias. These trees carry centuries in their rings. They embody endurance, timelessness, and a reminder of how small we are within nature’s architecture. We watched climbers on El Capitan, dots of courage scaling sheer granite walls. The immensity of stone here is staggering.
Leaving Yosemite, we crossed Tioga Pass, one of the most breathtaking drives in America. The road unfolds through alpine lakes, granite domes, and meadows that feel like paintings in motion.
From there, the landscape shifted dramatically into Death Valley. An expanse of silence and solitude, unlike anywhere else. Hours passed without another car, only the roar of the fighter jets cutting across the emptiness above. The terrain, painted in rust and bone, feels both alive and otherworldly, isolated yet magnetic.
This trip was more than a passage through parks and miles. It was an immersion in the artistry of nature, the way it can create space that dwarfs us yet makes us feel deeply present.
From the stark silence of Death Valley, we pressed onward, miles unraveling beneath us until the horizon opened into the Grand Canyon. No photography, no memory, no story ever truly prepares you for the sheer immensity of this place. It isn’t just vast; it’s transcendent. The Canyon stretches out in layers of time carved into stone, an endless choreography of light and shadow.
Standing at the rim, the air felt heavier. One of the summer’s largest wildfires was raging on the North Rim. We could see it clearly: plumes of smoke swelling into the sky, smudging the horizon with ash. The smell lingered in the air, sobering, a reminder of both nature’s power and fragility. The fire cast a veil across the landscape, yet the Canyon remained unshaken. Still luminous.
From the Canyon, we drove deeper into the desert, the road winding us toward the Amangiri. To arrive there is to slip into another world — one where architecture dissolves into landscape, where raw desert terrain becomes part of the design itself. The hotel rises from the stone as though it had always been there, a dialogue between minimalism and the sculptural vastness of Utah’s mesas.
By night, we bundled ourselves, gathered by our fire for s’mores — the simplest of pleasures against the most extraordinary backdrop. The sky was infinite here, the kind of blackness that was so deep. Everything was silent, a silence so profound it pressed against your ears, almost deafening. The architecture and the night sky reminded us of our smallness.
From Amangiri, the desert road led us toward Zion, the park that quickly became my favorite of the journey. The approach itself was cinematic — the long, winding drive through sandstone cliffs, and then that tunnel. A mile carved straight through the mountain, its darkness punctuated only by small windows cut into the rock, offering fleeting glimpses of the canyon beyond. Emerging on the other side felt like stepping into another world entirely.
Zion is geography at its most dramatic. The canyon walls rise like cathedrals. The air here feels different — charged, alive, as though the land itself is breathing.
We hiked The Narrows, a trail unlike any other. The path is not a trail at all but a river, the Virgin River carving its way through stone. With water up to our waists in some stretches, every step was a negotiation between current and rock. The canyon narrowed as we moved deeper, walls closing in, light filtering down in ribbons. It felt like we were walking into the very heart of the earth.
Zion held a kind of magic that was impossible to shake. The play of light, the immensity of scale, the way the cliffs caught fire at sunset. It was the park that lingered, the one that felt most like a dream made real.
From Zion, we carried on to Bryce Canyon. Staying at the only lodge inside the park gave us the rare gift of waking up in the stillness of this landscape, just us and the canyon, wrapped in the quiet of early morning.
Bryce is unlike any other park. It isn’t about sheer cliffs or vast open plains, but about thousands of hoodoos — slender rock spires rising like little guardians. They glow in the light, shifting from soft pinks to fiery oranges to deep reds as the day moves. At sunset, the entire amphitheater seemed to ignite, each hoodoo catching the last rays and holding them just a moment longer, as though reluctant to let the day end.
One of the most unforgettable experiences was riding horses deep into the canyon. From above, the formations look surreal — like a sculpted city — but from below, the perspective changes entirely. Riding between those towering columns of stone, you feel the scale of the earth’s artistry. Bryce has a kind of quiet drama, less about grandeur and more about intricacy, texture, and light.
From Bryce, we went on to Capitol Reef, a park that feels less traveled. There’s a rawness to Capitol Reef, a sense that it is still wild, still untamed. But what struck me the most wasn’t just the daylight drama of its canyons and domes; it was the night. Capitol Reef holds the title of one of the darkest skies in the United States. When the sun slipped away, the Milky Way stretched across the entire sky, luminous and endless, visible to the naked eye. It was impossible not to feel profoundly connected. Capitol Reef was less about activity and more about presence. It asked us to slow down and to look up.
Our last stretch of the journey carried us over Independence Pass — every turn felt cinematic, an arrival not just to a place but to a different way of living.
Aspen greeted us with its own kind of magic. The air here is impossibly clean, the food is just as intoxicating, a blend of mountain soul and cosmopolitan edge. Casa Tua, tucked right at the base of the mountain, became an instant favorite. With its intimate interiors, it’s the kind of place that makes every meal feel like a celebration. Sant Ambroeus charmed us with its elegance and warmth, while Paradise Bakery quickly became our nightly ritual. Their lavender ice cream was delicate and unexpected.
Days were full of both indulgence and adventure. Meat & Cheese was a constant go-to, as was slipping into the bar at Hotel Jerome, its history palpable in the walls. We made it out to the Snowmass Rodeo, a full-throttle immersion into Western tradition. Under the lights, with the mountains as backdrop, we cheered, feeling like cowgirls for a night — dusty boots and big skies.
We hiked the Maroon Bells, their mirrored peaks reflecting in still alpine lakes like something out of a dream. And then, there were the discoveries that stitched the town into memory: Kemo Sabe with its cowboy-chic spirit, D’ Angelo for its timeless Italian heart, and Spring Cafe, where mornings began with fresh juices and simple, nourishing bites. Aspen felt like the perfect crescendo to our 1,800-mile journey — refined and full of beauty.
— Michelle Waugh