I have never seen such a crystal clear Milky Way. The dunes already made me feel like I was on a different planet, just Michael and me alone in the world. But now I felt close to systems thousands of light years away.

This whole place was way up on a mountainside and the valley we were overlooking below was the size of New Hampshire. You could see the Great Sand Dunes National Park from there, and it looked tiny. I remember thinking, That’s it?

An abandoned quarry is an invitation. It scratches that itch of the human desire to explore. That desire to claim uncharted territory can draw a straight line back to Westward Expansion and lots of other unsavory conquests, but it’s there all the same.

If you’re like me, you prefer not to treat a natural wonder of the wilderness like a theme-park spectacle. Let’s be real here, Old Faithful’s eruption is BIG. So you really don’t need to be that close to still appreciate the majesty.