Following John Muir Out of the Digital World.

Chip asked if he could bring Media Jean and Johnny on our Yosemite trip. After a selfish moment that any dad will understand, I happily agreed.

The next day I found the three kids reading aloud from my dog-eared copy of The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures by Lee Stetson.

I sometimes feel so superfluous as a dad in the digital age. When Chip wants to learn how to do something, his mentor is YouTube. When he wants answers, his go-to guy is Google. When he has something to say, he sends a text. When he wants to talk, he chats. He shares his day on Instagram and forgets to update his own dad.

Now Chip and his friends are reading about John Muir. They’re asking to experience Yosemite in person rather than read about it on Wikipedia.

Maybe I’m having a positive impact on them after all.

I can’t wait. On the first day, we’ll drive through Montana and drop into Idaho. We’ll spend the night, get up early to ride the historic Thunder Mountain train, and spend a couple of hours at Craters of the Moon National Park.

Then we’ll push on through to California (with a rest stop in Reno), take Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley, and arrive in time to watch the day’s last golden light lift off of Half Dome.

We’ll set up at Housekeeping Camp, make dinner over my trusty Coleman stove, roll out four sleeping bags on two bunk beds, and fall asleep to the melody of quiet campfire conversations in the big hush of the valley.

Then we’ll wake with the sun and set out to explore heaven on earth.

No computers. No laptops. No tablets. No wi-fi. I’ll carry a cell phone for emergencies, but that’s it.

Ten days of face-to-face life and no Facebook. Ten days of birds singing and no tweeting. Ten days of direct experience without a YouTuber to tell you how to feel about it.

​I’m doing something important for these kids. Maybe I’m not so superfluous after all.

Comments

Media Jean: Whoa whoa whoa. We can’t bring our laptops, tablets, and phones?

Chip: I thought you knew that.

Johnny: How am I supposed to keep up with the financial world?

Chip: You’re not. That’s the whole point. To get away.

Johnny: Are you crazy?! I can’t “get away” from my stocks! I have to stay on top of that stuff!

Chip: I think my dad would say this trip is about taking stock of your soul.

Media Jean: How am I supposed to experience Yosemite without my photo app and my journal app. I even downloaded a bunch of Yosemite apps!

Chip: My dad has a camera, and he picked up a notebook for each of us.

Media Jean: But what if I want to learn more about Half Dome or Yosemite Falls or a raven or something? How can I Google anything?

Chip: I tried that argument on my dad. He wants us to experience Half Dome and the Falls and the wildlife. To feel our response to it. To think and wonder about it. He calls it your inner Google.

Johnny: You and your dad’s inner stuff! Inner North Star! Inner Google! I’m a businessman! I live in the outer world!

Chip: Every year my dad and I see more and more people with GameBoys and smartphones. They walk through Yosemite Valley looking down instead of looking up. Do we want to be like that?

Johnny: Well, when you put it that way.

Media Jean: John Muir would be ashamed of us.

Chip: No, he wouldn’t. He’d just encourage us to be bold. Here, I’ll send you the quotes I copied from dad’s book.

Media Jean: Got it. Wow, these are amazing.

Chip: Here’s one of my favorites. “Keep close to Nature’s heart ... and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

Media Jean: Johnny’s spirit can definitely use a bath.

Johnny: Very funny. This quote sounds like he’s talking to me personally. “I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.” Ouch.

Chip: “Most people are on the world, not in it.”

Media Jean: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

Johnny: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

Chip: “Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.”

Media Jean: “In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”

Johnny: “One touch of nature makes all the world kin.”

Chip: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

Media Jean: Wow. I want to feel that.

Johnny: Me too.

Chip: Me, too. So are we with John Muir? He said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” Do we hear the mountains calling?

Media Jean: Yes!

Chip: Are we going to leave our devices and go?

Johnny: Yes!

Media Jean: The mountains are calling!

Johnny: And we must go!

Chip: That’s the spirit!

​​Comic strip from the series "Screen-Free Week"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]