And listen to the casual reply

I'm leaving for the woods. I've been itching to get out of town and be in the mountains for a while now, and so, what the hell. I'm gonna do it. I reserved a tent cabin (wooden floor, bed with sheets and wool blanket, unheated, canvas roof and walls) in Yosemite Valley and rented a car, convinced my recently-unemployed friend Nichole to accompany me, took the next two days off work, and am headed for a long weekend in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Yay me!

It's a little early in the season, I realize, and I'm expecting chilly evenings. Though I'm hoping that the waterfalls will be approaching their peak flows as the snowpack melts out of the high country. Another advantage to going so early is that there won't be so many people packing the Valley floor.

But what's fueling the timing of this trip more than anything is that Friday is the next company Quarterly Meeting, and I'm determined to miss it. I go to them dutifully every quarter, but this one will be the one where my name gets called out for having been with the company for 10 years, and I don't need that kind of public acknowledgment. Just slip my gift certificate into my slot in the mailroom and let's forget the rest, thank you.

So Yosemite it is! I plan on hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls (the highest falls in N America and the 6th highest in the world), relaxing in the valley along the banks of the Merced, and then venturing to the Hetch Hetchy Valley and Reservoir, source of San Francisco's pure water supply in the northern tract of the park. And not thinking about work for a second.

And now, to pack the cooler.