By Ethan Maurice | November 8, 2026
To celebrate a finished initial build of The House for Human Flourishing — and to fulfill one of my goals for the year to take a photo-safari road trip with my mom — we spent five days in the desert heart of the Southwest this October.
The trip was a peak life experience for me, rife with meaning and wonder and emotion.
In the wake of unprecedented rains, we found ourselves in places like Monument Valley, the Needles of Canyonlands, and Valley of the Gods, with soupy clouds, crisp air, and deep solitude abound. We stood at the center of Monument Valley without another soul around. Conversing with the owner of the Needles Outpost, we learned of the wild lives of cowboys who popularized and protected the park (and I was invited back for a work trade/remote work stint from a tiny home with Stalink currently being built!). We traded tunes as we cruised the surreality of southern Utah in what is now my mom’s Honda Element home on wheels.
Our last night, the clouds cleared, and a full moon rose over the ancient and holy-feeling Valley of the Gods. I can’t remember a landscape ever having such an effect on me. Walking a dirt road in the moonlight, our shadows trailing us through the electric dark, we had this… full-on mother-child reckoning. I thanked my mom for giving me life and raising me with such gnosis that I was loved. She told me after she someday passes, if I ever have a feeling she’s sending me a sign, she is. We marveled at the vast mystery before us of which we were fashioned and emanated from.
For road trip and get-out-into-nature inspiration, I offer my photographs from the trip:
As movie director David Lynch once said, and our natural world eternally reminds:
"Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful."
