When I squeezed through that crevice in Yosemite National park, I had no idea how consequential that choice would be. At first, everything seemed natural. The trees still stood tall, textured the same, green leaves blowing around the same way in the wind. The park still seemed just as it was on any other day of the year. It wasn’t until the walk back to the villa where everything started to seem- different.

As a solo traveler new to adventure, I felt quite astounded by my bravery and sense of ease throughout the tiring trek. As a reward to myself and a celebration of my new identity, Is made the decision to head over to a saloon down the road from the villa where I was staying. There was an “old-timey western town” making up the whole row of buildings where i was staying, to me it was a nice way of keeping this adventure alive.

Walking down the dusty, dirt road, I took a notice of the loud silence of emptiness that consumed this atmosphere. The cowboy-themed town, once bustling with tourists, adventurers, and paid actors, was now a desolate, eerie wasteland. Even the sky had turned a weird shade of navy blue, consequentially shading everything in sight a darker version of its natural identity. As I neared the saloon, I looked up at the sign, hoping for some wholesome western-themed silly name for the saloon, I noticed that none of the letters made any sense. Some were backwards-facing, some had umlauts, and some were just straight up unrecognizable. Walking through the saloon doors, I saw a robot bartender.

“Howdy partner” said the bot. It wore a cowboy hat on its shiny white metal head. A stick-on mustache coupled to further reinforce the appearance. However, this was not a clever ploy, as the robot had one large black spot as an eye, and another black oval for a mouth with obviously digital teeth. Draped around its body was a sheriffs jacket with a bright golden star pinned on it. “Which will it be, the boron brew or the photon fill?” It seemed like an odd dichotomy. Humans don’t drink boron nor do they drink photons. Something was clearly off. With a poof, the robot was instantaneously changed into a rabbit and hopped away. Okay now I knew something was afoot. Seeing this with my own eyes, I turned around to run but suddenly was eye level with the floor. In an attempt to let out a scream, all I could do was hiss! I was turned into a snake! As it turned out, everything in this dimension was constantly undergoing transformation. The bar was now a spaceship, and the robot-turned-rabbit was now a flamingo. I wanting nothing more but to get out of this building, and to return back to the crevice I had crawled through.

Finally figuring out how to slither my way out, I began my journey back through the path to the place where everything had changed. It was a short-lived moment of resilience. I had just gotten used to snaking around, the transformation happened once again and I was changed into a kickball. With this lack of autonomy, I was blown around by the wind. In this dark, ever changing environment, I was now completely lost and began to give up hope on ever making it back. That was, until I got blown over near a group of juvenile dinosaurs. They saw me rolling around and thought it would be funny to kick me into the middle of the woods where I would be stuck forever. So they did. The largest one was pitched the ball, kickball style, and launched sky-high. It was only from up here that I could finally see over the tree-tops and reorient myself spatially. Simultaneously, the transformations continued and I was (luckily) next made into an eagle. With this newfound ability and independence, I made a beeline for the spot that once seemed so inconspicuous. Instantly after passing through, I was back in my body, feeling like not a second had passed. The sky was bright again, the signs read normally again, and the people were returned to people again. It was the wildest adventure anyone had ever been on.