Juniper Vision
The sun was just beginning to set on their third day of the road trip, and Carn had an arm out the window, rolling to the waves of the breeze. From her rearview mirror, Juniper snuck a look at the boy, who was grinning as usual, despite not being able to see the beautiful pink streaks shooting up from the horizon. They’d made it to the rolling hills of the Grand Canyon. Juniper turned down the classical music- their little inside joke- and pulled into a visitor’s lot in the middle of the National Park. She unbuckled and quickly grabbed Carn’s hand, dragging him out of the van and guiding him to various interesting rock formations in walking distance. She’d place his hands on one side of the oddly shaped boulders, and tell him to make his way around, feeling every nook and crevice. After an hour feeling it out, they hopped back into the van down an underdeveloped side road that Juniper’s parents had taken her when she’d visited as child. She pulled off at a viewpoint that seemed surrounded by canyon on either side. Guiding Carn to the middle of the U-shaped location, she whispered instructions into his ear and then ran a few hundred feet away to admire the scene. He then let out a wolf-like howl, and clapped as the echo spoke back. Carn tilted his head back, and for a moment, Juniper swore he could see the vastness of the Canyon, the natural beauty of an imperfect crack in the Earth.