Foothills Trail Pt.2 - Highlands Ranch

I thought that for my last journal entry I would end where I started and take this experience, literally, full circle. My last entry and sight journal spot was to revisit Foothills Trail Park one last time before I head home to Chicago for break.

I'd like to take a little time to reflect on what these sights journals have meant to me in my time here at DU and explain where my site will go from here. Starting off I will not be publishing weekly anymore. If I do end up publishing it will more likely be biweekly to monthly.

The sight journal has taught me new appreciation for the earth and nature around me. It's taught me to really slow down when I'm in nature and interacting with the world around me. I say world as a whole because I have learned that we as humans and everything that we have built and is associated with us is still nature. We seem as society and as humans to think that the things we build "ruin" what "true" wilderness is. When in reality we forget that we as a speices, as humans, are nothing but animals and wilderness ourselves. "True wilderness" doesn't exist. Our buildings and houses are no different from that of fox dens or ant hills. This prospective has really helped me see the world in a new kind of light, and for me personally, it has helped me connect with nature more. You will see in the next couple of photos that I have not edited out houses in the background like I did in the first blog I posted.

The landscape has changed very drastically within the three months I've been here. I want to relate this to myself and talk about how this walk was a great reflection on the way that I have changed in the past three months. Having almost completed my first college quarter as a freshman at Denver I have had to navigate several social and academic challenges in my three months here. I have made and lost friends. I have learned what it takes to navigate college in an academic perspective. Finally, I am still learning what it takes and how to balance the two.

The park you see in the background is one I have been playing at since I was a baby. While I only just moved to Denver as an adult for college I have been visiting this beautiful state since I was three months old. Some of my foundest childhod memories come from that playground and the excitment I got while running around and seeing mountains as I played on the swing sets. Walking past the park now I realize that it still brings both my inner child and myself so much joy to look upon those mountains. Wether its my five year old self or my now nineteen year old self, I having been connecting with mother nature and the rocky mountains my entire life.