A Different Rest for the Weary

Tomorrow I leave on my first vacation since 2010.  I’m coming into that vacation after maybe the most demanding eight months of my career. It’s been college finals week level of sleep deprivation seemingly for months on end, including one span where I was awake 89 out of 108 hours.
So, you’d think I would head to some resort on a beach, a cabin by a stream, or some European inn in a town with no clocks.
Instead, I’m flying, floating, then riding a bus to what’s rated as one of the most grueling hikes in North America—a rugged wilderness described by trail alumni on YouTube as a place where nobody escapes a battered body.  In fact, the Canadian Coast Guard and Parks Canada medevacs or otherwise rescues up to nine people a week from this stretch of ground—when only 52 people per day are allowed to enter the trail.
When I tell people where I’m going, I get two general responses.  The first: “That sounds awesome!” and more often: “Not me. Why would you do that?”  For the crowd who fall in that second camp, let me walk you through the reasoning.

True Escape

I can take a nap or read a book in my house, on my deck, or a park in town. So, I don’t understand spending four figures to do that in a remote location.  I have to go somewhere where I can do something I can’t do where I live.

Gridlessness

I get emails that literally start like this, “I know you’re on vacation, but I need [insert media here.]”  I have had clients call me after midnight to discuss their direct mail proofs.  I’ve had another ask, “When do you get on the plane?”  Auction marketers need things “yesterday” every day, and my company is one of the few firms in the country equipped to help with auction marketing emergencies. To make sure auctioneers can’t track me down and appeal to my pity, I go where there isn’t cell service or WiFi signal.

Individualism

I don’t suffer from agoraphobia, but I’m not comfortable with herd mentality, especially when it comes to vacations.  I live a half mile from Walmart.  If I wanted to be surrounded by obese, demanding American myopia, I’d walk down the hill.  I want to take the lesser traveled path and see the rarer sights.  Everyone has beachfront balcony pictures on Facebook.  I prefer pictures that stop the scroll and require captions.

Training Goal

I operate on goals.  I was the second grader who did 2.5 years of curriculum for the stars on my chart and the graphic design minor who slept 4.5 hours a night in college to keep up with the graphic design majors.  I need running races, muddy obstacle courses, and challenges to get me out of bed every day at 5:30, to guide my nutrition, to push my gym time to muscle failure.  Treks like this do more than provide emotional and spiritual medicine, they keep my body in a healthy place.

Adrenal Dump

My job proves an almost-constant adrenaline blitz.  My adrenal gland now requires something massive to dispense a rush.  To be fair, I don’t need a vacation to get an adrenaline kick.  If you’ve looked through my Facebook albums, you know I squeeze a good bit of adventure into the cracks between Fridays and Mondays.  But trips of this length let me take on rarer challenges, more immersive experiences.  Breaking a dam of pent adrenaline crashes a wave of catharsis through deep parts of my spirit.

Worship

My primary spiritual pathway (of the documented seven) is nature.  It took me 30 years to learn that.  I connect with the supernatural most through the ruggedly natural.  My busy seasons tend to choke my journey with Jesus.  Watching the symbiosis of the elements and the creativity behind their beauty bring me back to my knees and to prayers of gratitude.  Imbibing a world unarguably bigger and more intricate than my imagination reminds me of my place, my smallness, my need for something beyond my mortality.

Legacy

I don’t know how many days remain in the jar of my life.  And I don’t want to spend the ones I have, regardless of how many I have, on the perfunctory.  Back in 2006, I set my goal in life to experience physical and spiritual adventures in such a way that draws others to do the same.  I can’t do that clicking pictures through an AARP tour bus window, laying on a beach for a week, or eating on a boat the size of a shopping mall.
I know I’m more than exception than the rule in our culture.  I’m okay with that.  That means I’ll have a lot of beautiful real estate to myself this week.