We survived the COVID pandemic, but what did it teach us? Perhaps we still need to acknowledge what it cost us.

I think if we do not grieve properly, then our grief will come out sideways.

Coming up, author Terry Tempest Williams helps us make sense of the times we're living in,

and what's feeding the underlying unease Americans

of all stripes seem to be feeling lately. She shares what she's observed from the Red Rock Desert

of Southeast Utah to her role at the Harvard Divinity School in Boston. That's the gift of the

desert for me living there 30 years, is the desert has taught me not to look away.

Terry helps us recognize how the ordinary all around us might offer a key to how we recover

as a society.

You know, I think there's something deeper than hope, and that is engagement.

I hope you can stay with us for what promises to be an extraordinary hour ahead with our special

guest, Terry Tempest Williams, on Travel with Rick Steves. It had been a while since we spoke

with Terry Tempest Williams here on Travel with Rick Steves. When we recorded our last conversation

with Terry back in 2019, she had just written the book, Erosion, Essays of Undoing.

We tried to make sense of the losses many of us felt at the time at attempts to discredit science

and to stifle efforts to address the causes of global warming.

Since then, we've been through a pandemic, and now a second Trump administration keeps us on our toes,

as they unravel protections for people, wildlife, and the environment on an astonishing scale.

Terry's known for her environmental and conservation activism, as a gifted writer and speaker,

and as an educator in her native Utah and at the Harvard Divinity School.

When we heard she had a new book coming out, we knew it was time to reconnect

and to hear how she's been responding to the latest challenges in our world.

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