I’ve wanted to visit Crater Lake for… a long time. Last year, when I took my parents on a road trip, we drove just 30 miles south of it – but because our schedule was packed that day, we decided not to take the turn and go to the lake.

Crater Lake has been nagging in the back of my mind even more consistently since. And this month, I finally got to visit this wonder. What I can’t say, however, is that the lake would stop nagging. Ever since I laid my eyes on it for the first time, my mind has been trying to wrap itself around it. How does something like this even exist? No photos can do justice to the blue of the water – the bluest blue I’ve ever seen – or to the size of the lake, or to the gradient of the sky above it. To take it all in in one look is impossible; you have to turn your head from side to side to be able to take in the whole lake.

Yet again, I was completely amazed by the wonders of the planet we live on as I stood on the top of the lookout where we hiked with my boyfriend . It took some time and convincing for him to get me to start hiking back down. I could be staring at that lake for centuries and never be able to comprehend it, never have enough…