🚙 I kayaked in watercolor. Around a bend in swishy soft swamp, I lay for hours. An osprey sat on the stub of a tree.

The next day:

• A man with a boat says, “I can’t tell you how many kayakers I’ve had to rescue. The wind picks up, and they can’t make it back to shore.”

• I wake before the sun starts painting to a softness against my cheek that makes me shudder. I open the van door, and the shadow of a chipmunk slips out.

• A beast on a hill so distant it’s a black dot on yellow lumbers. Even with binoculars, I can’t say—angus or bear?

I am, in a single day, conquerer, an island invaded, an explorer confounded by scale.

Ah, travel. You make me whole.

***daily road note***