HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
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NOVEMBER 2013
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ILLUSTRATION BY MIGUEL MONTANER
47
CALLS FROMTHEWILD
The nature of your vacation may depend on whether
or not you bring your smartphone
BYMAUREEN ELLEN O’LEARY
M
But we were not entirely “away from it
all.” Indeed, a lot of “it all” accompanied
us even into the wildest corners of the
state. Throughout the day, our cell phones
brought the voices of home to our ears
and before our eyes in texts. We learned
how friends and family members had
spent their day, and we were able to fill
our loved ones in on our activities even as
we engaged in them.
Here’s your mom at
the top of the falls! And Mark, reading as
usual, on the front porch of this fabulous
old inn!
Through words and instant pho-
tos, they traveled with us, enjoying what
we enjoyed.
This uninterrupted contact was prac-
tical as well as pleasurable. Using my
cell phone, I was able to arrange a post-
vacation visit tomy sister’s house and sort
out a work-related ma er. It was reassur-
ing to hear that the cat had been fed, the
garden watered. Home was never more
than a few bu ons away.
But there was a downside to this. Too
o en, the thoughts that kept me awake
at home dri ed into my nights and days.
Is that medical crisis over? How’s the rela-
tionship going? Is the cat still peeing on
the curtains?The frequent exchangeswith
friends, kids and colleagues preventedme
from floating free of the everyday world.
The voices in my ear kept me tethered
to the life and the self of my home. And
sometimeswe need tohave a complete—if
temporary—break from all that.
This thought reminded me of a trip I
took to the British Isles many years ago,
before my cell phone became an append-
age. The carefully planned four-week trip
was the longest I had ever spent away
frommy two daughters. Halfway through
the journey, I found myself in a remote
corner of Scotland. A er driving through
a gorgeously wild landscape—moors,
lochs, sheep-dotted hills—we arrived at
our B&B, a rustic farmhouse shrouded in
evening mist. It was my older daughter’s
20th birthday—the first we would not
celebrate together—and I looked forward
to a nice chat with her.
The farmhouse was, it turns out,
really
rustic. The nearest phone was a
few harrowing, twisty miles down the
narrowest of roads. In order to speak to
Heather (named a er my favorite Scot-
tish plant), I had to drive through the
fog—on the wrong side of the
MyhusbandandI tookaroadtripearlier this
summer. We headed north from our home
in Oakland, California, looking forward to
losing ourselves in the beauty of Oregon’s
pristine lakes, energetic rivers and tumbling
waterfalls. We reveled in the solitude of
our early-morning kayaking trips and the
serenityof our early-evening conversations,
sippingwine andwatching the sun slipwith
a deep blush below the horizon.
culture
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TRAVEL ESSAY
