by Marlise Kast-Myers
Tribune News Service
It had been 18 months since my passport had seen daylight. Travel restrictions, lockdowns and, frankly, some level of complacency were to blame for my silenced exploration. My husband, Benjamin, and I had traded in airline tickets and carry-ons for tents and fishing poles to take our pack of pooches into the wild.
Four trips to the Sequoias had us on repeat, where we settled our tribe at the base of the river. It was there that we read books aloud, smoked fresh trout, counted falling stars and bathed under cascading waterfalls. Days would pass without seeing a soul, to the point that our return to a still-isolated and masked society was slightly depressing.
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