When the gun went off, I was near the back of the pack, wedged in a crush of over 250 runners. Some were tethered together. Most were jogging slower than I had anticipated. My goal: Don’t come in last.
“When there’s a bowl of popcorn in the middle of the table, we think, I’m gonna eat two bites. Then we eat the whole bowl,” said Jennifer Bushman, founder of Route To Market and director of sustainability at the Bay Area seafood chain Pacific Catch. “That is human. That’s how we consume.” Seconds later, we order the poke burger (among other things). Because of course we do.
On January 20, 2017, President Donald Trump’s inauguration day, Laiken Jordahl went for a hike in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, an ecological jewel in the Sonoran Desert that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. The monument is studded with towering saguaro cacti and a rare namesake plant that looks like it was pulled from the Dr. Seuss universe.
At around 8:30pm, on March 2, 2016, Berta Cáceres had dinner with her old friend, Gustavo Castro, at El Fogón, a popular restaurant and bar in downtown La Esperanza. A jumble of historic buildings with terracotta rooftops high in the Honduran sierra, La Esperanza (which translates as “hope”) is a quaint town of 11,000 and among the most peaceful in the country. It was also home to its most famous human rights and environmental activist. Who, before midnight, would be lying dead on her bedroom floor.
As the sun sweeps its western arc over the Salton Sea, toward the distant desert mountains, a prism appears on the cottony clouds, a rainbow rabbit hole in the sky. Just by looking up, we all drop in.
Deep in the Southern Hemisphere, colorful, towering cliffs are the cinematic backdrop for the world’s most overlooked surf paradise. Picture consistent and epic waves, empty lineups in turquoise bays, and pristine natural beauty in all directions. It’s a place so spectacular and treasured that, until five years ago, few outside of Australia had ever heard of the Great Australian Bight.