The rain came from a single black cloud in the otherwise blue, featureless sky as we entered Death Valley.

My friend and I were in California to steal a car.

OK, maybe “steal” is too harsh of a word. We were repossessing a car, a purple little Honda Fit that was an expensive reminder to me and should be for anyone reading this to never, ever, in your whole life, co-sign on anything for anyone.

I was riding in the spotter seat of the safari jeep, located on the hood of the vehicle, giggling wildly and screaming with joy as misty rain pummeled my face and our safari guide Mitchell sped 40 miles an hour down the rough dirt trails.

Kathy Dinh of Oklahoma City is an outdoorsy kind of girl.

She likes to get out with her two Labradors and explore the wild places in Oklahoma and beyond. But when it comes to hiking, sometimes it’s easier to stay within the city limits and find those wild, lonely paths hidden among the sprawling urban landscape.

After more than a half hour waiting in a line with what seemed to be hundreds of Chinese tourists, I stared at a cabbage.

The hike up the Sentinel Dome in the Yosemite National Park seemed impossible from a distance.

The huge rounded dome of limestone jutted up from the trail like an intimidating monolith, and as we hiked past the conifer trees that smelled like vanilla, we wondered how on earth anyone would be able to scale that giant, round rock face to get to the top.

As we approach the cloud forest area of Volcan Maderas on the Isle Ometepe in Nicaragua, the roars begin. I can’t see the beasts whose deep, ugly and threatening howls fill the morning sunshine at the base of this dormant volcano, but they sound as if they number in the hundreds.

When Ash and I decided to take a romantic trip to Central America, we didn’t initially plan on visiting Nicaragua. I’d visited Costa Rica before, and I thought that Ash would like that country, but the airline prices kept going higher. One day, Ash texted to ask, “What about Managua?” And I thought, “Why not?”

Waking up on my first morning in the small coastal town of Bandon, Ore., I walked out of the tiny ocean-front motel to an alien landscape of crashing waves and thick grayness.

Hidden away in the rolling Osage Hills of northeastern Oklahoma, the shrunken heads seem exotic, out of place and a little bit disturbing.