Only a couple of hours outside of Los Angeles, California, lies the Carrizo Plain, a vast grassland home to diverse communities of wildlife and plant species where signals are lost and natural beauty is found.

We packed up Thursday night and drove north to a nondescript motel in the heart of Taft, California—our home for a two-day riding trip exploring the remote and remarkable features of this epic monument hidden from plain sight. We didn’t have a goal. That wasn’t the point. We just wanted to go off-grid and connect with nature, with one another, and with a new place just beyond our backyard.

Venturing into the vast expanse of the Carrizo Plain, we rode through a landscape shaped by the elements over millennia. The feeling of solitude, the sense of scale, was simultaneously disorienting and grounding. We found solace in the simplicity of the moment. All we had to do was ride. Each day saw a steady pace, a few tests of strength, and a lot of corn dogging. We had nowhere to be, but in this space, there was no reason to rush through the days. When we returned to the motel each day dusted and dehydrated, we slid out to a local family-run Mexican spot and brewery to refuel. Tacos. Beers. Heaven. The nights were short; the days were long.

As we marveled at the panoramic beauty of nature before us, it’s hard not to recognize the fragility of these wild spaces. Three hundred years ago, California’s Central Valley was vast grassland where antelope and elk grazed and wildflowers swept the spring landscape. Today, amid urban and agriculture development, a remnant remains in the Carrizo Plain National Monument. How might we contribute to the protection and preservation of the Carrizo Plain? How might we be a part of ensuring only Mother Nature shapes its landscape over time? When we escape to wild spaces, we experience more than an epic adventure. We experience a gift from the natural world. One that is worth safeguarding for future generations.

It’s not often we give ourselves permission to escape. Yet, when we do, we come alive. We unlock a world of possibilities; we connect with what matters most. We bring back a fresh perspective that forever alters how we charge ahead as people and stewards of monuments like Carrizo Plain. So let us continue to venture into wild terrain and explore the radical world around us. Let us collectively work to preserve and protect the wild spaces we love to ride so future generations can get lost is the great out-there.