There are places to travel to that when you visit, the atmosphere of the place itself can clear your mind. These types of places are likely different for every individual.

For me, they are usually sweeping landscapes where wild country is the king and the queen and the jack and the ace — places there is no question that nature controls the scene.

I think the big and the wide and the openness of these places — be they deserts, river valleys, prairies or mountainous landscapes — help instill that sense of clearing in my mind.

It’s so easy to feel good there.

These are places to take deep breaths, listen to the soft winds dancing amid the tumbleweeds or the nodding blue wildflower blossoms along the ridge.

Skyscapes there are awe-inspiring here no matter what the time of day.

I’ve often sat or stood in these kinds of places watching thunderstorms roll in toward me from a long way off, or meteors spitting and twisting as they soar from one end of the sky to the other in just a second or two, places like the Mojave Desert and Lake Superior.

Yeah, I’ve been in these kinds of places and felt their seemingly endless freedom, peace and grandeur, but not enough – I don’t think I could ever get enough.

I know for every one of these scenes I’ve experienced – from California to New Mexico and Colorado to Minnesota and Wyoming to Georgia and Virginia – there are 10,000 more that I’ve never seen.

I sense that with how crazy the world has gotten, the more I can set foot in these types of places will help heal and restore me, ground me.

It’s not the kind of grounding parents might threaten you with, like you’re a jet airliner grounded because of turbulent weather or a drunken pilot, this is the comfortable type of being tied or connected to the earth, to the dirt, the soil, the water, the air.

In short, Mother Nature’s grounding.

Just being in these kinds of places can set your head straight.

There are other scenes in nature that are different in that they lend themselves more to doing things, like hiking or fishing or hunting or camping.

They won’t necessarily have the wide openness of the vistas, but that doesn’t mean they will be any less scenic.

I’m thinking now of an 11-mile hike I took with a friend once in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. We hiked up switchbacks until we reached Smith Saddle.

The view was beautiful. I remember being under the shade of tall and mighty pines.

When we kept walking on down the other side, we plunged into a river valley where we followed an ice-cold stream down to the confluence of a wider river.

The forest was dense by California standards. A western diamondback rattlesnake sat curled up under an overhanging rock. We walked past quietly and neither we nor the snake felt any reason to be afraid.

Over the entire hike, we never saw another person.

I remember fishing for brown trout in the Owen’s Valley out west, catching two beautiful fish in the rapids of that namesake river on a gold French spinner.

I also recall camping overnight on a high ridge, again in the San Gabriels, listening for spotted owls to call during the nighttime hours.

It was me, the nature center director from Eaton Canyon and my oldest son, who was probably about 6 or 7 years old at the time. We didn’t hear owls that night, but we did hear a mountain lion. We also saw a pygmy owl during the day.

I remember hunting “partridge” when I was about that same age with my mom and dad.

If I close my eyes, I can still see the old Pontiac, the gray-cobbled backroad, mostly washed out, and the shotguns my folks had in deerskin-style tie-closed cases.

My sister and I would cover our ears with our hands every time they would get ready to blast. At home, I remember my mom showing me lead pellets from the shotgun under the skin of the birds.

Still farther beyond these places, are scenes where doing is just watching the world go by, seeing places that you might only experience from a passing car or the seat of a bicycle, a passenger train, a motorcycle or a four-wheeler.

These are settings you swear you’ll come back to one day, maybe to do something, maybe to do absolutely nothing.

I used to see these places more often as a kid, because I didn’t drive back then.

There were so many little creeks and dirt roads I wanted to experience for myself. My imagination would snap and fire with all the possibilities, if I were only older.

I remember returning to one of those old places that I had not visited in about 40 years or more.

I recalled from those drives with my parents that the road I was on had a side road split off, and if I followed it, I would come to a little bridge over a creek that looked like a good trout stream.

My mind was able to lead me back to the place. The old wooden plank bridge over the creek had been replaced with a steel culvert, but otherwise, there it was.

That was a different kind of satisfied feeling. I felt a solid and direct, almost electric, connection to those old days of my childhood by this visit back to this place.

It seemed like I was a magician being able to recreate the wonder and fascination from my younger days that were long since gone.

At this point in my life, even though I can drive, I don’t have time to stop at all the places I’d like to. So, I still see countless places I swear I’ll come back to camp at, walk down or sit to admire.

The older I get, the more I realize I won’t have time to visit all the places I’d like to. So, the plan is to do the best I can in the time allotted to me.

I love to experience these scenes with others, but I am just as comfortable going it alone if I don’t find any takers on a given morning, afternoon or evening.

Nature — from learning about it, experiencing it and loving it, to caring for it, being inspired by it and more — has been one of the most significant threads woven through my lifetime.

I have my parents to thank for that. They got me out there when I was as young as 3 years old to go fishing. We picked berries as a family, picnicked at lakes and other scenic places, took woods rides, stopped to admire deer, bears and other animals.

Along the way, I found myself in nature.

It’s only the end of January and I’m already cooking up a long list of places I want to visit this year.

Some of my plans are grand. Others are by no means ambitious and include just spending more time outside in my own backyard.

I think fondly of being out there listening to the first robins of springtime, now only about seven weeks away. Wow. Think about that!

There are sandy beaches I want to walk, agates to search for, campfires to sit beside even mosquitoes to swat and rainy days to walk in, with the summer leaves and everything else that’s growing so green.

I’ll be doing my best to stay out of the places that agitate and stress me, bring me down or give me anxiety and heartaches, places that hold none of the true attributes of nature.

These are scenes like garbage dumps, spewing chemical plants, crowded or congested just about anything, polluted rivers and lakes, people talking loud about all kinds of various foolishness, wasted and diminished landscapes or blight-infested neighborhoods.

I just want to be as far away from those things as I can be.

I won’t care if the sun beats down on me all day or if it rains or snows or the damned wind blows. I just need to feel that dirt beneath my bootheels as I continue to move forward – farther, higher, longer, better, for as long as I can.

I’ve got to get back to the country, back where it all began.

Rock-n-Roll Over and over and over again.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.