A: For the past several years, I have been traveling pretty extensively around the United States. By traveling, I mean on the ground. The experience has let me see how such a diverse continent fits together. As a child, I often spent hours staring at climate and vegetation maps because I wondered how everything fit together in the place I had gone to. I explain more of my fascination with travel and trees in the prior Q and A post, but personal geographic wonder aside, connecting maps and the real world has remained an interest of mine. In 2008, I was able to make my first continental crossing. Seeing the plains unfold from the forests, seeing the Rockies rise in turn from the plains, heading into mountain forests, and then down into sparse deserts, well, it was all pretty amazing. While the main purpose of this blog is to expose our continent to my readers, I suppose the impetus to keep it going has more to do with sharing my own sense of wonder and awe over everything from Opuntia Fragilis to swimming in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I want to share with people how I get excited about geography, nature, history, etc. Hopefully, some of the joy can be passed on, or at least some sort of heightened awareness of one's surroundings, no matter how seemingly mundane they might be. Heck, right now I am half writing this, half staring at the silhouettes of some Red Pine (Pinus Resinosa) blowing in the wind outside my window.
This motivation and odd preoccupation with resinous conifers is all well and good, you say, but what about the spark that actually got you to write this glorified amateur photo-journal, you ask? I would have to say it was because I was almost struck by lightning. The funny thing is, I did not even flinch. I was at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon back in June, and was simply awestruck by everything around me. Maybe it was the cold air up around 9,000 feet up (I had been baking for weeks in lower elevations). Maybe it was the lovely forest I was surrounded by. Maybe it was the actual canyon. Maybe it was seeing the storm come across the wide open space. Whatever it was, I felt that I was in my element, and I figured that maybe I should start making a chronicle of these sojourns and experiences.
Of course, it never hurts to put more on a resume either.
Q: Why do you never write about the churches you have been to?
A: Maybe I should. Churches and other visible religious elements are very much a part of culture, and I definitely have the academic background to write on them, having degrees in both theology and art history. We have some wonderful religious buildings of all sorts here that can give some of the greatest ones in Europe and Asia a run for their money. After all, this blog is about history and culture as much as trees, trees, nature, and mostly trees, and North American history can be difficult to understand purely from a secular context. Try leaving Junipero Serra out of Californian history, or Frederic Baraga out of the story of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
I am Catholic, and thus have a tendency to, you know, mostly visit Catholic churches. For one, writing about a mosque or a Baptist church would be overstepping my bounds and field of expertise, to say nothing of how I most likely would not have the spiritual eyes to experience such places as their associated worshipers would. That said, North American history involved more than just Catholics, and I don't think I would be struck down by lightning (knock on wood) just for stepping inside a synagogue or going to a medicine wheel. In fact, I would not mind checking out a Synagogue or a Wheel.
As usual, send your questions my way in the comments or by e-mail at BKryda@gmail.com.
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