I am a traveler by nature and whenever I use to go somewhere, I would plan. Every detail, from the notable to the hidden, and everything I could fit in-between. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I realized that the reason I liked every place, other than Minnesota, was because I never let myself become a tourist here. So that’s started doing. I began taking all my vacations within its borders and treated every map-dot as though it was 10,000 miles from home and that I needed to soak in everything it had to offer, no matter how mundane each seemed to a native.

I do this as a way to change my own mind about this place we all have in common. To fall in love with a land, and the people, that have been foreign to me, although never really were. Before, I was as anonymous and ambiguous as the places and things I now document. My bucket list has changed that. It has heightened my sense of awareness to my surroundings, and become a way to look past familiarity and find awe, in its purest form.

Since my bucket lists inception, it has fascinated and befuddled me that the dirt that spawned my need to run is the very same that daily welcomes me home.