Does anyone remember this post from a few months back on the “tyranny” of email? aka “Reply-all will be the death of me”? I was just again talking to someone about the pleasure of being unable to check one’s email while on vacation and it got me thinking about out-of-office messages.
There was a wonderful story in the New York Times last month called “The Art of the Out-of-Office Reply,” that details some of the variety of approaches people take to discourage the pile-up of messages. I recognized myself in one of the more wishy-washy ones: “frank admissions that the person on the other end of the email is actually available in some way, just less likely than usual to respond to you.”
But two alternatives really stood out. First:
“For the Dallas Morning News book critic Michael Merschel, a recent trip was an opportunity to do many things at once with his out-of-office. The first few sections covered the usual territory, including a few admonishments about how and who to correctly pitch.
For recipients curious enough to continue scrolling down, though, there was a heartfelt explanation of the reason for his absence: ‘I want you to imagine a middle-aged man who fell in love with a beautiful baby girl almost 18 years ago, and now he is driving her to a gigantic college in a distant city filled with all kinds of people who do the things people do at college … and he has to leave her there. And drive home alone. In the dark. In a minivan.'”
Shivers! Get the kleenex. How wonderful is that?!
And second:
“Correspondents who tried emailing The Toast editor and Texts From Jane Eyre author Mallory Ortberg in July received an email with the subject line ‘nope.’ ‘I am currently on vacation and not accepting any emails about anything. I’m not planning on reading any old emails when I get back, either, because that feels antithetical to the vacation experience.'”
Wow. Something to think about come holiday season—or the next time an out-of-office is warranted.
We keep a globe in Hudson’s room to point to Europe (and to California) when he surprises us by suddenly exclaiming, “Let’s go to Spain today!”
As you can imagine, we talk about travel a lot—places he has been, places he will go… That distinction can still get as fuzzy and feel as abstract to him as the distance between two continents. So I’ve been wanting to gather a collection of photos for him to have his own travel album to flip through.
We love the Mini Book of Names & Faces spiral-bound book we made for Skyler’s first birthday (she looks at it all the time), so we chose a similar format from Pinhole Press, their new “My First Photo Book.”
Earlier this year, when I was in Big Sur for an adventure summit with Bota Box, we would find ourselves on and around these very doable trails that would end at the most incredible places—and then we’d toast with a glass of wine. It was my kind of hiking.
And it got me thinking that my ideal day-hike is the kind that feels moderately strenuous—just enough that you get your heart pumping and feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish—and leads you somewhere with an incredible view that you can sit down and enjoy. It shouldn’t be so strenuous that you’d hesitate to bring along some comforts. And, ideally, it has at least some change in scenery—to the extent that it feels like you’re reaching a destination.
This was a particular favorite…
BIG SUR: Ewoldsen to McWay Waterfall Trail
You can’t go wrong in Big Sur—it’s such an incredible stretch of California’s coastland. The Ewoldsen Trail Loop begins just across from the McWay Waterfall: you climb through Redwood Groves and around rocky streams to take in sweeping views of the Pacific—each vista more beautiful than the last. It’s about 4-1/2 miles roundtrip.
Then, when you’re done, you can cross the street to walk the McWay Waterfall Trail (pictured). The waterfall trail is easily accessible from the road, but this iconic view of the waterfall that cascades down 80-feet onto the shore is not-to-be-missed. There are benches along the way where you can stop to relax. Bring along some binoculars (perhaps a Bota Mini—easy to toss into a rucksack without worrying about glass or a corkscrew) and watch for whales breaching off the coast.
And here are four more that fit the bill in Northern California… Keep Reading >
