Yeaaa Fridays aren’t going to work. My brain is mush. So Sundays are the new Friday. Well, in newsletter land at least. If only Sundays were the new Friday in all regards.
🚙 Logistics, logistics, logistics…
My roadtrip vacation is coming up in just over a week, and I’ve put maybe a collective hour of attention into planning, so it was time to buckle down. Cue new spreadsheet. Can I just say…I friggin’ love logistics. Puzzles to figure out. Optimization problems. How can I do all the things I want to do given certain constraints, while still leaving enough room for spontaneity and detours? Maybe surprisingly, I’m not someone who likes to plan trips down to the minute. I prefer having a general plan, an awareness of what my options are, and the ability to decide at each point how I want to proceed. So basically I set them up like a big choose-your-own-adventure that still ultimately gets me where I want or need to go. Actually, I think that might be true for life in general. There was a version of me yearsss ago in the peak of my travels that wanted to be a concierge trip planner, creating these sorts of trips for people, but then I realized that’s called a travel agent.
There’s a cruel irony to the amount of time and attention you generally need to put into planning a trip, especially when that trip is meant to be a chance get away from the thing that is taking all of your time and attention (aka work), so maybe that’s why travel agents make sense. We tried going to AAA because they have all the maps, and it turns out there are people on staff there to help you plan your trips. They were lovely people, but there’s no chance in hell I could sit there and have them put points on a map for me. I guess I’m just not someone who could ever relinquish control of a trip to someone else. 🤷🏻♀️
I spent most of Saturday figuring out the logistics. Which route do we take? Where do we stay? The whole point of this trip is to do some car camping, with some other options sprinkled in between. It involved checking a combination of Airbnb, Hipcamp, and Recreation.gov (which didn’t exist the last time I road tripped and was camping in National and State parks. I’m impressed!) for each location to find the most interesting sleeping option, and making sure there was enough time to stop at random places or wander cute towns before hopping back on the road. Did you know there’s a Yelp-type site for camping? I forget how niche the internet can be sometimes.
In the end we have a campsite on the beach, a hotel, a couple more campsites (including one on a farm!), maybe another hotel, and what will probably end up being a yurt or a treehouse to wrap things up. The loop ended up taking less time than anticipated, but honestly, I think I’ll be thankful for a few days of PTO at home before heading back to work.
✨ Rapid-Fire…
I found a female YouTuber in the business/finance space! She doesn’t have the views/following that most of the males in the space have, so again, I point to the “is it coincidence or the algorithm?” question, but I spent a few hours binging her channel and it’s right at the nexus of the things I find interesting (small, local businesses, personal finance, doing things unconventionally). She presents things in a “we’re all intelligent beings here” way, which I prefer over the super aesthetic Girl Boss side of female business/personal finance YouTube.
The guy who’s been building out an Airbnb in his yard in 30 days just hit the 30-day mark. Spoiler alert: It’s still not done, but he’s made a lot of progress. I’m still going to be following along to see it through.
I went to NYC this week for the first time since November 2019. I was all sorts of anxious about it because I was worried living here in my little bubble at the Jersey Shore has made me “soft” and not a city person anymore, but it turned out I can still navigate my way around without a map and, honestly, not too much has changed. I met up with some folks on my team IRL (some for the first time ever)! and we ate at The Orchard Townhouse. Highly recommend. The cocktails were solid. Also highly recommend some occasional IRL interaction with your coworkers. I’m still not at all interested in going into an office every day, but I would love the option to go in to one once or twice a month.
🤣 Stuff I sent and received…
My current spirit animal:
How you can expect to find me when I eventually get my farm.
Until next Friday,
Jenn
P.S. don’t forget you can just reply to this email and it’ll come straight to me. I’d love to hear what caught your attention this week!