CSO Insights Blog Posts
On Vacation--Off the Grid
There are still places in California where--despite Verizon's claim--you cannot get a cell signal. Death Valley is one of these locales. And despite its name, you can survive here quite nicely, thank you.
For those who've never visited this national monument and can't imagine why a government would want to set aside a few million acres of desert as a preserve, all I can say is you owe it to yourself to come here. Yes, it's hot; even on this mid-April tax day, the temperatures will be above 90 degrees.
But there is a scale to this place that is hard to grasp and a rhythm that is impossible to ignore--if you can step away from your monitor and keyboard long enough to get here. An hour's flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas and a couple hours' drive from Vegas to the eastern boundary and suddenly you're in a completely different space-time continuum. More like a space-time suspendium.
Things move at a geologic pace here, which is to say, they do not appear to be moving at all. A hike up Golden Canyon this morning shows layers of mud and rock that were deposited hundreds of thousands of years ago and rocks the size of box cars that dropped in with what could only have been an amazing thud (see Figure 1). If a 25-ton boulder flies a few hundred feet and there's no one around to hear does it still make a sound? I'm thinking YES!
Figure 1 - Golden Canyon, Death Valley
From Dante's Outlook on the east side of the valley you get some sense, though hardly the full picture of just how BIG this place is. The view is hazy in part from less than perfect air quality but also because you're looking at unimpeded sight lines of twenty-five miles or more. Looking across the valley floor to Telescope Peak it doesn't seem like that big a deal. But from that peak (elev. 10,049') down to Bad Water below (elev. -282') is a vertical drop of two miles-twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Eureka Valley sand dunes at the north end of the park are as tall as a 70-story building (that is not a typo) and more than 100 miles south are the 400' high Ibex Dunes. In the middle are the Pleasant Dunes at a mere 15 stories. There's a place here where NASA tested the Mars Rovers because it was the place on Earth most like Mars (I'm not making this up).
It's quiet here and warm and relaxed. The alluvial fans incline at what's termed the "natural angle of repose," which is as aesthetic as it is poetic. This entire place makes a person want to mirror that same angle and condition. And it's dark here at night--really dark. Which means you can see more stars in the sky than you can imagine. In short, this is a place that's good for the soul.
With all the busyness of business, the emphasis on speed and increased productivity, the need to be connected 24/7, and having too long "To Do lists," it's good to take a time out. To take a breather and get grounded. For all our effort and intention, it's good to be calmed and humbled by Nature.
Next week I'll be attending Selling Power's Sales Leadership Conference back in Las Vegas. I'll need the weekend to ramp back up. Hah!
Regards from the Road,
Barry Trailer
Write a comment
Required fields are marked with *.
Read More
Sign Up