My Kind of Freedom

No flags. No fences. Just open land and the right to roam

It’s almost Independence Day. Most of us will be gorging on hamburgers and hot dogs, maybe lighting off a few fireworks to celebrate. I will be, too. I love this country—even if I’m not always thrilled with how it’s being managed.

I’ve felt freedom before—chasing westward windshield sunsets, staring across the vast, dry jaw of the Grand Canyon, or the wind-scraped ridges of the South Dakota Badlands.

But I don’t think I’ve ever felt freedom as deeply as walking into public land alone, before daylight, to sit in the quiet and wait. No entry fee. No one to tell me where to go or what to do. I was just there—my boots on dirt, my breath in the cold air, the world waking up around me. The day full of possibility.

To me, that is freedom. Not fireworks. Not hot dogs or apple pie. But the raw, unsupervised kind of liberty that comes with space and the knowing that you're on land that belongs to all of us.

Colorado 2020. This spot would have been eligible for sale under Mike Lee’s original land grab.

It is that taste of freedom that made me afraid about the public land grab included in earlier versions of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. I saw the maps of the land that would have been eligible for sale, ground that I had walked on. Wild land that had lulled me to sleep, yet simultaneously thrilled me with the untamed vastness of it. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought about how those places had touched me in ways I have trouble putting into words. I couldn’t stomach the thought of those places—precious, wild, and formative—being auctioned to the highest bidder, then scraped, drilled, and gutted for short-term gain.

I emailed my senators and representatives.

Then called.

Then emailed again.

Adding my voice to the thousands of anglers, hikers, hippies, and hunters, demanding that the land sale provision be removed.

Not. One. Acre.

Can you imagine a “For Sale” sign here?

And for once, the system worked in our favor. Not for profit. Not for politics. But for the land. For everyone who’s ever glassed a ridge line, cast into cold water, followed a bird dog through sage, or just stood still in the trees and felt like they belonged.

This is our shared inheritance. And keeping it intact is something I’ll be celebrating.

On this Independence Day, I’m not thinking much about pyrotechnics or pie, though I’ll probably enjoy both. I’m thinking about the hundreds of thousands of acres that will quietly stay open. The ones we can all walk into with nothing more than a map and a little time. No velvet rope. No gated access. Just woods, sky, and space to be small and wild and free.

That’s my kind of freedom.

I’m thankful we still have it.

Happy Independence Day.