Goodnight, Goodbye, Thank you. (LAST PART)

I laid in my sleeping bag that night mentally wishing cordial goodnights to the birds, the hare, the yucca and juniper and cactus, Chesler Park.  I also regretfully added in a goodbye to all.  I wrote in my journal: Signing off from the backcountry for the last time.  God Bless this place.  I set an alarm on my watch for 6:45.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the next time I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag, the tent reflected the cool-early morning blue light of the sky.  I began going about organizing my backpack, putting away my nighttime gear and breaking out my loaf of cinnabon bread for breakfast.  I was fifteen minutes ahead of my alarm, so I decided to enjoy my breakfast slowly and watch the sunrise.
Had I not woken up on my own, I wouldn’t have gotten out of the tent to eat my breakfast and watch the sun that morning.  I’m not usually a fan of sunrises; it involves getting up far too early for a (typically) underwhelming reverse of a sunset’s color-intensifying effect.  But the morning of March 31st, 2016 was not like that.
A band of deep, rosy pink sunlight glazed the mesas walls and the edge of the horizon line, followed by a layer of canary yellow that blended abruptly into a rich blue sky.  The bulbous texture of the Needles were extenuated by mile-long shadows cast by the perpendicular sun.  The whole world was casted in a shade of dark, reddish pink.  It decided for itself to be seen through rose-tinted glasses that morning. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve witnessing that beautiful morning, but lavished in every minute of it.
Eventually, however, I had to answer to my human affliction of reality.  Reality that day was that I had to go home.  I turned away to pack up camp.  I slung my monstrous backpack on for a last time.  I left Chesler Park, but not before turning to that endless, wonderful everything-and-nothingness of the wilderness and thanking it again for reminding me of my life and how to live it.  To whatever was listening, I said a little prayer for it— that it might become respected by humans again, and that we might swallow our pride enough to let ourselves be taught by it, as I had and hoped to be again. 
I walked away not feeling reset, or found again, or any of the others things people would ask me about upon my return.  I walked away feeling like I’d filled more of my person, become something of more substance for the experiences I’d had.  But I also walked away starkly more aware of just how much more I could continue filling myself with.  And with that, I said goodbye to Canyonlands—and see you next time.