Emilie Hofferber

07/22/2026

the first time i drove past lake mcdonald on going to the sun road i knew that no matter what i did with my life, i needed to make sure it involved being outside as much as possible and seeing as much of outside as i possibly could.

yesterday, it was a little hot in the van. the best part about the van is that it’s a reminder that comfort is optional, and you can always opt in to experiences that feel better than the ones you’re living. everything i could do inside my van could also be done outside. outside where the coolness of a river’s breeze worked as mother nature’s air conditioning was a far more comfortable experience than inside my van which felt like a greenhouse.

outside isn’t always a grand adventure, sometimes it’s just moving what you’re working on to somewhere you can marinate in vitamin d. and sometimes it’s the kind of adventure you never forget, like when you drive through glacier national park for the first time and your whole perspective changes.

outside, always, if possible.

07/20/2026

i’d been wanting to add kh wave cloud formations to my collection of cool cloud photos and i just barely got this photo before they disappeared.

these clouds aren’t super rare, but they’re pretty rare. mostly because they are so short lived. i’ve also never seen them at sunset before. basically it’s caused by the wind speed on top of the cloud being way faster than the wind speed at the base of the cloud which makes it crest over itself like a wave. eventually it blobs back out.

07/19/2026

07/19/2026

made some friends when i was passing through about a month ago. forgot how magical these brief moments all felt.

07/14/2026

how did we get here?

the daily news has been unsurprising for so long, it seems like a mashup of the worst madlibs of the onion articles combined with the ecological grief of climate change. it’s unsurprising because whether we voted for this or not, we elected this. and we’ve seen it before. so, how did we get back here again?

has the internet split people into such deep of bubbles that we’ve lost the art of knowing our neighbors? have we lost the art of causal conversation at the gas station? when did protecting public lands and our neighbors become so radical and polarizing? when did facts turn into opinions and opinions into the rule of law? how has our literacy rate regressed so much that the term “post-literate” is emerging.

yes, i’ve seen the news that bears ears and grand staircase escalante national monument have been so significantly reduced in size they’ve all but been eliminated. my jaw remained in place as i learned of the executive order because he did exactly what he said he’d do. exactly what he’d done before. and as a former utahn, my heart aches for the landscapes, the wildlife, and what remains of the natural history we’ve already all but erased.

so how did we get here? and can we ever go back?

do we shed the niceties of beating around the bush to get straight to the point? do we have to listen without interrupting even if we don’t like what we’re hearing? do we have to redefine the meaning of facts, research, and studies? how do we go back to before propaganda met an algorithm?

anyway, i’m rambling but i, too, am mad about the monuments. just as i’m mad about the border walls through organ pipe and big bend. just as i’m mad about the father shot by ice. just as i’m mad about the idea of watering computers when not all americans have access to running water in their homes. don’t know how we got here, a part of me thinks we’ve always been here. but i don’t love it.

07/12/2026

been through the desert (driven through new mexico) on a horse with no name (my big green 20 year old van)