The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first;
        nature is rude and incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

~ Walt Whitman, 'Song of the Open Road' (from the larger work Leaves of Grass)
Excerpted from These We Inherit the Parklands of America by Ansel Adams

ansel.

People wonder why I don't express more interest in traveling around the world. The fact is, I really haven't completed explorations of my backyard! Two-dimensionally, I am jealous as Hell over your flying by the Himalayas! JEZUZ!!! But - after all - the other day I walked by some fresh green moss in my garden; this is a terrible confession for an old grizzled mountaineer to say - but that moss looked mighty impressive to me!

From a letter to Dorothea Lange, February 22, 1959