I was on a horse-drawn carriage when I received a text from my ex-husband that our divorce was finalized. Holed up in a cabin for a few restorative days in rural Oconto County, Wisconsin, I was there to hike, catch my breath and, hopefully, heal. A few months prior, my seven-year marriage abruptly ended, upending everything and sending me into a guilty, reflective tailspin: How did this happen? Am I a bad person? Why?
Those initial weeks were demoralizing, making me question myself and my conscience. It was a mental fog that consumed me, as I tried my damndest to put on a happy face, hold my friends close and keep myself distractedly busy. Fortunately, as a travel writer, I traffic in escapism, and for the first time in my life, I embraced the healing power of divorce travel.
Travel always brings out my best self, but one experience I hadn’t felt before was traveling while going through a life-altering divorce. That summer, I felt thoroughly rattled and derailed, suddenly unsure of myself and my abilities as a writer, a friend, a partner. Even something as familiarly invigorating as travel seemed daunting, as I balanced the process of selling our house and trying to keep peace while cohabiting with someone I no longer recognized. But, as they say, if you fall off the horse, get back on. I just never expected to take that philosophy so literally.
And yet, there I was, alone in the north woods of Wisconsin, getting back on a horse in more ways than one. That trip, several months after our separation earlier that summer, showed me I was strong enough to move on from trauma and grow from it. Staying in a literal cabin in the woods, the kind of place that looks impossibly cozy by day and somewhat terrifying in the pitch blackness of night, I slowed down to re-focus on myself. I sat by the lake every morning, sipping coffee and watching foliage reflect off the mirror-like surface. I read Agatha Christie by the fireplace and watched Jurassic World: Dominion because when I’m alone in the rural woods, nothing soothes like murder mysteries and Jeff Goldblum. I also just wrote. Not because I was on deadline, but because I wanted to write something for myself — a rare treat as someone who writes all the time for others. Amidst it all, my marriage formally ended, sooner than expected. And I felt nothing but happy.
A lot of that joy can be chalked up to the trip I took just before that, one that I’ll forever look back on as the most healing experience of my life.
Before my divorce was finalized, the first trip I took was to Snowmass, Colorado. Things at home in Oklahoma City had leveled off just enough, and I had moved into a small apartment. There was peace between us (or so I thought), and I felt safe easing back into doing what I love. Most unexpectedly, amidst the upheaval, I met someone else. He was a friend first, and a shoulder to lean on when I needed it most, but it evolved into something more. And despite my initial plans to move across the country ASAP, I followed my heart and stayed in the city that had been so good to me. I also followed my heart and invited him to join me on a late-summer trip to a Colorado mountain town. At the time, I had no idea if I was being completely insane or not, especially considering my divorce was still ongoing. But just as fatefully as that evening I ran into my now-husband at a bar we both love, our first trip together — and my first since my world turned upside-down — proved seminal.
Finding Solitude in National Parks Helped Me Evolve as a Traveler
How a fateful trip to Badlands National Park changed everythingLocated a few miles from Aspen, Snowmass is an idyllic all-season mountain town famed for skiing in the winter, luminous foliage in the fall and everything from rodeos and wine festivals to alpine coasters and hot air balloons come summer. For both my husband and I, there were a lot of firsts on that trip: it was our first time in Snowmass, our first time in a hot air balloon and our first time traveling together, all while our relationship was still undefined. For me, it was my first time getting back on the proverbial horse and back to what made me the happiest, helping me to close one chapter and start another. After a summer spent dangling by an emotional thread, breaking down in tears any time a family member so much as texted to ask how I was doing, I was restored. I was finally able to stifle the storm back home and just embrace adventure anew — cackling in joy as I zipped down the Breathtaker Alpine Coaster in The Lost Forest, awed by the stillness and serenity of my first hot air balloon and comforted by companionship as we hiked the Rim Trail South, culminating with a valley view so rewarding that it’s permanently, viscerally carved in my mind.
At the summit, there was a rock etched with a quote from Fievel Goes West, of all things: “Just remember, Fievel — one man’s sunset is another man’s dawn. I don’t know what’s out there beyond those hills. But if you ride yonder…head up, eyes steady, heart open…I think one day you’ll find that you’re the hero you’ve been looking for.”
Out of nowhere, it hit like a hammer, and I just sat on that rock and cried. I cried as one door closed and another one opened, leaving behind all the harm and trauma of a marriage that had devolved, with the newfound strength and clarity to acknowledge that the fault wasn’t mine alone. I cried because of the fate that led me to meet the man I was meant to be with, when we were meant to be.
It was a trip of so many firsts, but most significantly was how healed I felt upon its end. The sun had set on one season as another dawned. One divorce, one remarriage and two years later, Snowmass has remained a significant place for me and for us. This summer, my husband and I returned. We rode the alpine coaster again, slurped stew with repeated visits to our beloved Stew Pot, channeled our inner cowboys at the 50th annual Snowmass Rodeo and returned to that requisite trail. Once again, I sat on that same rock where I asked Nathan to be my boyfriend back then, and I cried. This time, though, I wasn’t crying over my broken home but for the affirmation that this trail, and this place, were just as fateful as they first felt two summers ago. During a time of turmoil, I got back on the horse and back to doing what I love. I tried my hardest to keep my head up, my eyes steady, my heart open and, in another first, I was grateful for divorce.
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