Conor Knighton - My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park

It is a sunny Saturday in May, and Ive been on the road for five hours. Or five months, depending on how youre counting. Ever since I left Los Angeles back in January, the days and weeks have started to blur together, like the South Dakota scenery now zipping past my window. I am deep in Americas Great Plainsa vast ocean of green and brown, broken up only by the occasional bright billboard.

The Great Plains sounds like a name cooked up by a pioneer ad agency. A covered wagon full of Don Drapers, determined to market an expanse of seemingly unremarkable grassland. The Spectacular Ordinary? The Magnificent Dullness? No wait, Ive got it! Well call itThe Great Plains.

Great Faces, Great Places is the official state slogan printed on the license plate in front of me. The plate features a picture of Mount Rushmorea man-made monument of men, designed to bring tourists to this part of the state. The plan worked. Today more than two million people a year come to see four dead presidents carved into granite.

Only one of those Great Faces had any claim to this place, though, a man who saw a certain kind of beauty in the desolate, wide-open spaces. Teddy Roosevelt first came to this region in 1883, back when it was all still just the Dakota Territory, six years before it was carved up into North and South.

Growing up in West Virginia, I always wished there was an East Virginia. Without one, I thought we sounded like a spin-off state. Tell someone youre from West Virginia, and they are bound to mention that they have friends in Roanoke, or that theyve once been to Colonial Williamsburg. No, no, West Virginia, not western Virginia, Id try to explain. It wouldnt matter. We were forever the Diet Coke to Virginias Coke, seen as a sequel instead of an equal.

West Virginia is rural, but it is full of mountains and valleys and streams, always disguising what treasure might be around the next bend. The prairie is differentout here, you can see whats coming from miles away.

But when the tears come, they surprise me. Im instantly embarrassed, even though there is no one else in the car. I thought I was done with this part. My GPS is guiding me toward the gray, mysterious hoodoos of Badlands National Park, but they have not yet come into view, and so, with nothing to distract me, Ive become lost in my own head. Alone with my loneliness.

Roosevelt once wrote that nowhere, not even at sea, does a man feel more lonely than when riding over the far-reaching, seemingly never-ending plains. Here I am, 131 years later: a grown man, sobbing in a Subaru. As much as Id like to just blame it on the plains, I know this breakdown is not the scenerys fault. I should have anticipated this. I should have scheduled something fun. Instead, I have foolishly routed myself through the middle of the loneliest damn place in the country on what was supposed to be my wedding day.

Great.

We had just ordered the save the date cards when she suddenly called everything off. Still plenty of time to cancel all of the arrangements, but too late to un-save the date in my memory. At the time, I actually tried to blame those announcements. I argued that there was probably just something about seeing our two names together in cursive, finally attached to a date, that was causing a temporary panic attack. It was normal, I said. It would pass, I promised. But it didnt.

She had returned from a work trip a few days earlier, and before I knew it she was packing her bags to leave again. I didnt know where to this time; she just said that she needed some space. She didnt want to talk about things, didnt want to try to see a counselor. It all seemed so extreme, so out of nowhere. Was this because Id made fun of the idea of hiring trumpeters? Hire the trumpeters! I was so sorry. I couldnt understand.

My fiance was the only daughter of a large, wealthy family, and we were gearing up for a fairy-tale destination wedding at a European castle. Anyone trying to crash would have to contend with a moat.

Her parents were happily footing the bill, but the opulence made me anxious. I was worried none of what was planned felt like us. Was this really who we wanted to be? The lord and lady of Downton Abbey? The suggested reception menu featured line items like frites et mayonnaise: 615 euros. For generations, Knighton blood has always run ketchup red.

Mostly, I felt guilty about how much everything was costing because I knew I would have happily married her anywhere, just as long as we got to be together. My brother was going to be my best man, but she was my best friend. She was funny and smart and kind, and whether we were hiking up into the San Gabriel Mountains or strolling around the neighborhood, it always felt like we were the only two people in the world.

But suddenly I was on the receiving end of a series of businesslike emails, arranging the final move-out day and time. I wrote back to each request with a simple as you wish, the phrase farm boy Westley said to the beautiful Buttercup in The Princess Bridea last, coded I love you. Which, yeesh, looking back on itsounds pretty pitiful.

When the day finally came, I couldnt bear to be in our apartment. I found the earliest movie showing nearbya screening of Ant-Man at 10 A.M. in IMAXand sat in the theater until everyone else had left, long after the credits, long after the obligatory Marvel after-the-credits scene. I couldnt make myself get upI was still in shock. By the time I got back home, half of my furniture was gone, and with it what felt like all of my future.