# 17 – Wilderness on this trip

I have seen the wilderness on this trip a few times. Probably the best example I can remember is driving in South Dakota from the Mt. Rushmore area to Crazy Horse and the Lacota Reservation at Pine Ridge. We took a long, winding drive through a large park area and saw a large number of wildlife all around at different times. We ended up being about three or four feet from a huge buffalo, just hanging out eating right next to the road. We also saw a few different groups of deer and wild birds. At the same time, we could see nothing but miles of trees on either side of us. The wilderness resembling this isolation and freedom, like the city in a different form, showed us that there is a lot more going on that we encounter on a daily basis. As we are brushing our teeth in the morning and driving to work, around the bend there can be buffalo walking along feeding with their little ones, little birds hatching from eggs in the tree outside the kitchen window, and ants building a colony just outside the front door. It seems we have been able to pave over the wilderness, to reshape it, to redefine it, but in reality it still exists all around us.
I started out in thinking about this wilderness as some place far, far away from an urban landscape, suburb, or building. This is true, though. The deserts of Arizona and fields of Kansas and the mountains of Colorado do have the sense of wilderness, of animal worlds going on and maintaining themselves outside of much human interaction. But, thinking deeper, I feel like this really happens everywhere, thus mentioning the birds and ants outside (and sometimes inside) our homes. Defining wilderness to me is, like I said, a cycle of animal and plant lives that have the capability of surviving on their own, without human interaction, even though they may encounter us from time to time. That is why I say the wild is all around us. The systems keep going long after we have gone and without a need for us, really.