Adam McLane
From mid-January until last weekend I was on the road 53 days, something like 41,000 miles. Sitting next to someone on a plane or having lunch with a friend, inevitably I’ll hear, “So you travel a lot. That must be a lot of fun, right?”
Watch the first 6-7 minutes of this presentation from Rick Steves, I think it’ll challenge your perceptions of what it means…
In both cases, I hope to see more of that. I know for myself, while I certainly don’t land in the same area code as Mr. Steves on a lot of political issues addressed in this speech… I certainly want to continue to embody the two points above. I want to and plan to continue to travel beyond our borders. And I want to and plan to continue to share what I know to be true.
Last year, I traveled about 25% of the days. This year, I have more individual trips but fewer miles and days away from home because of a strategic change in how I travel. (More quick trips, less stringing together 2-3 trips into a really long trip.)
Between now and June 1st I have 10 trips away from home. It’s a lot. Not the most of people that I know, but a lot for me.
The next few months will find me in a bunch of places, I’d love to meet-up if it works. Here’s where I’ll be and how we can connect.
Kristen and I were fortunate enough to spend a couple days in Wonder Valley, near Joshua Tree National Park this week. It was a great way to recuperate together from the insanity of fall’s busyness. Specifically, it’s so important for us to spend time as a couple away from the kids. Since we don’t have family around it’s pretty tough… so we were thankful that Kristen’s parents were willing to give us these couple days away as our Christmas gift.
We booked our place via Airbnb. If you haven’t tried it yet, totally recommend Airbnb for finding unique and affordable places to stay all around the world.
Saturday begins an 8 week sprint to Thanksgiving. Between now and then I’ll be away from home roughly 50% of the time, generally gone Thursday-Sunday.
It’s a time of year my partner in crime is affectionately calling the insanity.
In just two days I leave on a 10-day trip to Zimbabwe with World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine and a grip of youth workers. As you can imagine I’m a wild mix of preparation, wrapping up projects, enjoying the final day of the kids Christmas break, and a variety of lists. (Yes. This post was on my list.)
I just turned on my computer for the first time in 7 days.
It still feels a bit funky. My fingers are stretching to familiar places but typing feels totally odd. Yesterday, I woke up to cuddle a freezing Jackson back to sleep. Today, he woke up in his crib to a warm bowl of oatmeal and a morning full of Curious George & Elmo.
The McLane Family is 500 miles from our little June Lake camp site, 8,600 feet above sea level and a million miles from yesterday.
I spent a week intentionally disconnected from my day-to-day life. I turned off my email, signed out of Facebook, never opened Wunderlist or even had the thought, “I should write that down.” For the first time I can remember I even let the blog go fallow for a week.
It felt good to rest.
When I wrote my last post I was on the brink. I was past tired. I was exhausted. I don’t know what comes after exhaustion but I was pretty much there. It’s not so much that the exhaustion was hurting my work as it was that it was hurting to work. Day-by-day the grind was like a bruise that kept getting punched. Even embracing a more regular Sabbath wasn’t helping. I needed real rest.
After a week of hiking, exploring, playing, laughing, star-gazing, and fishing… I feel better and found rest for the first time in a long time.
It had been a few years since I really shut it down for 6 consecutive days. I don’t know if it’s my insecurity, the desperate feeling we had to turn it around at my old gig, or what… but I do know shutting it down was the right thing and something I need to do more often. (I have 3 weeks of vacation planned for the remainder of 2012.)
As we drove home yesterday, Kristen and I kept joking about the fact that we all still liked one another. Camping brought us closer together. As we left June Lake we were all a bit sad it had ended. I think all of us had embraced a little fantasy that it didn’t have to end… that we could just head to the grocery store and restock for another week. (And hit the showers to clean up!)
I think that’s a sign of a good vacation, that you leave wanting a little bit more and having fully entertained the option of never going home.
Each day was filled with a slowventure where we made breakfast together, cleaned up camp, and went somewhere to explore. We had a simple lunch of PB&J or fruit, cheese, and crackers. Somehow we managed to make it home in time to make dinner and have a camp fire before bed. (Did you know marshmallows are a food group while camping? I think each of the kids ate their weight in marshmallow!)
Together, we saw some of Earth’s greatest treasures. Yosemite denies description. Photos cannot capture awe. The giant sequoias, the Valley, the Tunnel View, the Merced River, Tuolumne Meadows, the Tioga Road, even The Mobile… all are happy places.
We spent 2 days not catching a single fish but smiling the whole time. We went up and down mountains. And we played in lots and lots of streams.
I loved watching Megan and Paul get lost in ancient forms of play. They made bow & arrows and pretended to hunt chipmunks. They wandered in the woods collecting stuff. They stared deeply into the starry abyss. They played with fire.
And they were rarely bored.
It’ll probably take me a few weeks to really unpack my vacation. But all I know is that I need more of that more often!
This video has me all pumped to head up to Yosemite. The countdown is on! 2 weeks.
One of the commitments that I made for 2012 is to rest better. I know, that sounds silly. But with all the stress and craziness of 2011 I forgot to take more than a few sporadic days off. That’s not healthy or sustainable.
With that in mind, and Kristen’s parents in town for the week, we jumped on the opportunity to take a 36 hour getaway down in Mexico.
Hotel: We stayed at the Rosarito Beach Hotel. It was great. We stayed in the Pacifico Tower, which is only 4 years old. It’s gorgeous. We got a king suite with a beach view and balcony for a little over $100. The property is right on the beach, has great beach access, a kickin’ pier, and all the amenities. Free parking was a nice added bonus. We’re already planning to go back with the kids. Seriously, the hotel was like 45 minutes from our house. I really dig the old world charm of the older parts of the hotel. This thing dates back to the 1920s. All the stars have been there. I mean… Marilyn Monroe stayed there back in the day. How cool is that?
Beach: I don’t know how long the beach is. It’s long. You can walk about a mile south of the hotel and… we got tired after about a 1.5 miles to the north. It was very clean and mostly empty. We thought it was cool that there were some fun things to do on the beach if you were into that. Like, rent a horse or ATV or drink a piña colada or eat shrimp. In the afternoons there is even a dude that will take you up in a sail plane. We didn’t do any of those things but it was all right there.
Food: There’s no lying about it. One reason you go to Mexico is to get your eat on. And that we did. The star of the show is El Yaqui. They basically do one thing and do it very, very well. They have a skirt steak taco (perrones) that is perfect. The steak, onion, guacamole, cheese, and tortilla make love in your mouth to produce a love child called delicious. We had 4 tacos and 2 sodas for like $11. You can’t beat that deal. For dinner we went to a divey place on the main strip and shared a fish combination. We had shrimp, white fish, calimari, and lobster plus drinks for $20. I mean, get real. It’s so cheap and good and fun! For breakfast we grabbed coffee and a couple of pastries and walked the beach. Simple and magical.
Shopping: Kristen had actually never been to Mexico. So we had a good time exploring Rosarito’s shops. The main market has dozens of little stalls with every souvenir you could imagine. We didn’t buy much but had fun. The main thing we bought stuff was in a big candy shop! They had everything you could ever want to put in a piñata. $10 in that place could get you a very serious sugar high.
Safety: I’m so sick of hearing how unsafe Mexico is. Yes, if you’re in a gang or you buy drugs or you’re in the red light district at 2:00 AM… Mexico is probably dangerous. (Um, just as dangerous as Omaha or Dallas doing those same activities) But it’s also a country with millions of people who are very proud of their homeland. Believe it or not, not every person in Mexico wants to illegally immigrate to the United States! I’ve been to Mexico several times in the past year or so and never once felt the slightest bit in danger. In fact, when we walked back to the hotel after dinner at about 7:45 PM the streets were basically empty. If you’ve stayed away from Mexico because you heard it was dangerous… my experience in TJ/Norther Baja have been awesome.
An invitation: Whether you are thinking about bringing your youth group/church to Mexico for a mission trip or maybe you’d like to find a sweet getaway spot. I don’t know any other way to make it OK for you than to simply invite you to come down. Drop me a line. I’d be happy to either connect you with some friends who live/work in Mexico or, if I have time, take you myself.
