Since receiving a cryptic message in a fortune cookie that read “Find yourself in nature” I’ve been having the strangest feeling that I should go hike or camping or something. I almost decided to ignore this fortune, based on a previous snowshoeing episode where I got lost with a friend and ended up a refugee eating Girl Scout Cookies at a hippie family’s mountain cabin after dark. But, because I believe in the wisdom of the Asian mind (and cookie), I decided a few weeks ago to test the theory. I drove to some canyon between Denver and Colorado Springs, parked right off the road and walked about five minutes to a gorgeous flowing river. (Baby steps.) I laid in the sun on a rock. My white flesh like a piece of sashimi. Nature and I were communing. And then I got sunburned.

Back to the city. I’m over you, Nature.

This past weekend, again, me and nature got together. It’s kind-of like a one-nighter I can’t shake.  This time, I outsmarted it. I was neither going to get lost or sunburned. I lathered on SPF 50, and with a friend in tow, left these markers to get us home.

If nature and I are going to be friends, I’m going to make a few rules.

-Heather