quiet days

Our neighborhood in Jackson Hole.

When my husband and I traveled in our 20s, most days would be go, go, go for us. We wanted to maximize every hour and pack in as much as we could. We’d get up and get out and stay out all day.

Thirty years later, we have a different philosophy: we plan for quiet days.

Our recent national parks vacation is a good example of this philosophy. We flew to Salt Lake City and pretty much hit the ground running. After a night spent in a hotel near the airport, we got in the car and started driving towards northern Montana. And driving and driving and driving. The first couple of days, we spent hours in the car, with stops to explore and get in some exercise (walking or hiking).

Then we got to northern Montana and spent a lot of time driving to Glacier and in the park, where we hiked as much as we could.¹

By our fifth day, we were tired of the car and the go, go, go. So on that day we stayed close to our condo, had a leisurely morning, then went for a nice hike that started just a short distance from our front door. After our hike, we came back to our condo for lunch and some reading, then decided to explore the nearby town a little, where we went for another nice walk. We still got in a lot of exercise that day, but overall things were less busy.²

The one day was all we needed to rest and recover from all the hiking we were doing at a much higher elevation than we were used to.³

After exploring Glacier, we headed south to Yellowstone, where we did a lot of driving, exploring, and hiking. It was glorious and wonderful but we were definitely tired by the time we arrived in Jackson, Wyoming for the last part of our vacation.

The first morning we woke up in Jackson, it was raining and chilly, so we planned to just stay in all day and read. Mid-afternoon, I put on a raincoat and went out for a short walk in our neighborhood. Here’s an unrelated, but still somewhat humorous, story I shared on Instagram:

I went out for a quick walk this afternoon and happened to glance off in the distance between two houses, where thought I saw an animal. My thought process as I kept walking:

"Huh, that looked like a bison. No, not beefy enough."

pause

"Could that have been a bear? Shit, I left the bear spray in the condo."

At that moment, I came to another gap between buildings. At the same time, another person stopped and looked off into the distance too.

They said, "Whoa, that's a big mama moose. Oh, there's her baby over by the bush. What a chunky calf."

And that, folks, is how this Virginia gal saw her first-ever moose.

The next day, it was snowing lightly and was cold, but we decided to go into Jackson and explore a little. We walked around for an hour or so, then went back to our condo to thaw out and read for the rest of the day.

This rest day strategy has worked well for us for years: Have a big travel day, rest as much as we need the next day, then a few busier days followed by a quieter day. Not only do we rest our bodies, we rest our minds.

What do you do? Are you always on the go or do you plan downtime?

1. By mid-October, all of Glacier’s facilities were closed, as was much of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which impacted how much we could see and which trails we could explore. But we made it work and had a wonderful time.

2. Whitefish. Absolutely lovely and I highly recommend it. That said, it’s an hour from the west entrance to Glacier NP, which is farther than we had expected. Next time, we’ll stay closer to the park.

3. We live at an elevation of around 400’. On our first day in Idaho we were hiking in Craters of the Moon N.M. and completely gasping for breath. It took us a week to get used to hiking at mile-high or higher.