Welcome to the Beautiful View Podcast, where we encourage you to look for opportunities in your life to see a beautiful view. I'm Candy. 

And I'm Paul. Today we are going to talk about being unplugged. 

Yes. We recently took a little camping trip to Backbone State Park and I left my phone and laptop at home for five whole days. We're going to share some of the observations that we made and some of the things that I learned by doing that. 

I still can't believe you did it. 

I can't either. 

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful view. 

Before we jump into today's topic, let's catch everyone up on what we've been up to the past few weeks. 

Yeah, so We went to Backbone State Park. 

We did. We're going to talk a bit about that here in a little bit. 

We are. But it's the oldest state park in Iowa. And just such a nice time there. 

Yep. And Tyler has had a couple of band competitions. He has. He's had two weeks in a row, two weekends in a row, actually. So they had state competition last weekend. They were in Quincy, Illinois yesterday for. 

They were. 

For a long day. Yeah, it was a long day. I think he got home at about 1.30 A.m., something like that. 

Yeah, and they set out, I think he was getting ready at 5.30 that morning. So that was a very long day. 

Yeah, but they did good. Yeah, they did great. We celebrated our we did. That day ended up being really beautiful. We had live music at the brewery that night with Forrest and his wife, Margaret McCurran. They are just really sweet people and they put on a great show. So it was really fun. It was a busy night, but a really fun night at the brewery. 

Yeah, like a lot of people showed up for to hear their music. And so it was just the sun went down. It was just a beautiful evening. And you too can see Forrest. He is actually in the TV series The Road on CBS on Sunday evenings at 8 Central. 

Yep. 

So you'll see him there with Keith Urban and Blake Shelton and all the rest of them. 

Yeah, go Forrest. 

Run, Forrest, run, is what I say. And so we're rooting for him. And yeah, so by the time this goes out, It will already have aired once, if not twice. And so, but do make sure and tune in and just see how he does. 

Yeah. 

We hope he does well. 

Yeah, we had a great time on our camping trip. 

We did. 

It was a very muchly needed detox from a very overloaded life. 

Yes, for sure. 

Now, you still had to work while we were away. 

I did. 

Which is a little tricky at that campground. 

Yeah, but you know what? That's what we used to do all the time when we were on the road. still had to work. So it wasn't like it was like some kind of retirement or extended vacation or something. we'd still have to do those things. So it's fine. And there was barely any cell phone service there at Backbone State Park, which. 

Yeah, which we knew that was going to be the case. 

Kind of the point of the whole thing. So finding ways to sort of like get around that so I could continue to sort of upload video content to my clients. So at one point, I found myself sitting in the truck in the middle of two cornfields in Manchester, Iowa, of all places. So it's just a really odd spot to find 5G broadband, but you have to do what you have to do. Yeah, for sure. 

In hindsight, since I ended up leaving my phone and laptop at home, we Maybe, but it was fine. I picked Backbone State Park so that I could use poor reception as an excuse to be unavailable. 

And now she's telling everyone about it. 

But then I decided that I just needed to completely unplug. 

Yeah, you did. I really like that state park. I like the hiking trails and the spot that we were in. It's actually in a different part of the park that we've been to before. 

It was kind of like when I booked it, was one of the only spots left. And it was only a 30 amp, which was fine because it wasn't very hot. So we didn't have to run our air conditioner. 

No, it was fine. So it was kind of like a little loop that goes down a hill. into the forest a little bit more. So we were under the trees. 

Yeah, it was pretty. 

I think it was a great spot. 

Yeah. I took notes during the week of all of my observations. 

Okay. 

And we'll share those in a minute. But it felt like stepping back into kind of a much simpler time. I remember when I was a kid. I would leave the house on my bike in the morning and my mom would say, be home for supper. She had no idea what I was up to during the day. Oh yeah. 

No good, no doubt. 

No. I was a good girl. What are you talking about? So, but I mean, aside from calling my friends houses and she had, she knew I was at, we had a whole, I had a whole group of friends in our neighborhood. So she, moms have eyes in all places. 

They do, yeah. 

So she could have found me if she needed me, but She didn't really have a way to contact me, aside from calling my friends' houses and checking up on me. So I don't think she ever really worried too much, though. 

No, she didn't. 

But all the neighborhood kids, we would all gather together, we'd play games, we'd ride bikes, we'd tell ghost stories, and we'd collect rocks. So we just did all kinds of things. One of my girlfriends had a, like one of those little storage things in our backyard and we turned it into a clubhouse. So that was super cool. Like a shipping container? No, like a little. 

The parents just threw you all in there and shut the door. 

No, one of those cute little storage buildings. 

Oh, yeah. 

Like, a lot of people like store their lawn mower and that kind of stuff. But it was just, it was open because I think they got a new one. Anyway, we turned it into our clubhouse and we made posters for it and we elected a president. And I mean, we did all the things. We were very creative. Anyway, so that's what I kind of got up to when I was a kid. We always had a big old time. It was a much simpler time when kids didn't have cell phones in their pockets or their hands 24-7. The good old days. 

Yeah, right. So it's kind of hard to imagine that now, the pre-cell phone days. How do we ever manage to organize like anything? 

I have no idea. 

Like carry a pigeon, like sending out the messages to our friends or something. I don't know. 

It's old fashioned calendar. 

I certainly couldn't remember any of my friends' birthdays. 

Oh, there's that. 

Couldn't jump in two days later and say, oh, my bad, late happy birthday, like we do now. 

On Facebook. On Facebook, yes. I personally think that we are all probably over-connected these days. 

I think that might be true. 

We have the entire world at our fingertips, and we are accessible to a point that it's kind of an expectation. 

Yeah, it really is. 

It was so nice to leave all of that behind for five whole days. 

Yes. Do you remember your first mobile phone? 

I do. And mobile is kind of a, I mean, it was mobile. I had one of those old bag phones that plugged into the cigarette lighter of your car. 

So kind of like the luggage you take on to the airport with the handle on top and the wheels and you kind of drug it around. Is that how that works? 

It didn't have wheels, but not far off. 

Okay. 

So it was kind of the size and shape of a regular, like, landline telephone. And it lived in a bag. 

Did it have the coily cord on it? 

Did, yeah. 

Really. 

And it only worked when you were in the car, the car was on. 

Okay. 

So it was kind of, I mean, it was a mobile phone. 

But it was kind of like a car phone, really. 

It was a car phone. 

Yeah. 

Now, it wasn't like my dad's phone. My dad's work phone was hooked up to his horn. 

Wow. Yeah. 

So when his phone rang in his truck, his horn honked. 

The whole neighborhood. The whole neighborhood heard it. 

Oh, yes. 

I bet he was very popular with that. My gosh. Wow. So how about you? 

Do you remember your first mobile phone? 

Well, I do with fondness. It was actually a really good phone. So my first cell phone, I didn't have like a personal cell phone. This was for my business. So I had started up a business. We expanded and we got to the point where there was two of us running it and we had to have the cell phone. So that was like one of the perks of the thing is I got to have a cell phone. So I had a Nokia 5160. 

That's funny that you remember that. 

I had to look it up. I knew it was a Nokia. I just had to look it up. So So it had the push buttons on the bottom and it was like, you remember the days when we used to do the text message and it was like, ABC, DEF, and you'd have to keep hitting the button. Yeah, And it was like, you know, I mean, somehow we managed to do that. 

I don't know how. 

But then I hacked into my phone and I made it do things that it wasn't designed to do out-of-the-box, which I was pretty proud of at the time. I mean, it was a little nerdy, but you know, I was proud of it. So I programmed it so that whenever it rang, if the person calling in was in my contacts list, it would automatically answer the phone and it would be on speakerphone. So like if I'm driving around in my van, my work van, the phone would ring and it would ring a couple of times and then it would answer and put me on speakerphone so I didn't even have to touch it. And so like whenever... 

So you always had to be ready to talk. 

I did. I mean, he had the warning, like I could have hit like stop if I didn't, but if I let it go, then it would just answer. 

The millennials are having kittens right now. 

They don't want to talk on the phone nowhere, like no way. But before that, we just had a landline at my mom and dad's house and everybody had our phone number. So like, if you wanted to reach my dad, my mom, my grandmother, myself, my brother, the cats, the dogs, you called this one number. And so, but we had the phone mounted to the wall in the hallway there. And if you want. 

Just one phone in your house. 

Just one phone in the whole house. 

Okay. 

And so if you wanted to have a private conversation, you'd have to take the phone and dial and then go into the living room across the hallway and shut the door on the cord. And so there were many, many times where my brother and I would go running down the stairs through the hallway to the kitchen and just get harassed by the cord across the hallway because we hadn't bothered to notice. And then the person in the living room on the phone, suddenly the receiver just hit the back of the door. So, but those were the things that we had to do in those days. 

That reminds me, growing up, we had, my sister and I had a party line. 

Oh. 

So my parents had their main house landline. 

Yes. 

And Tammy and I had our more like teen party lines. So how that worked was we had two separate phone numbers, but it was the same line. 

Okay. 

So if someone called me, it would ring two short rings. 

Two short rings. 

So that's how I knew to pick up the phone. If someone called her, it would ring one long ring. And that's how she knew to pick up the phone. Now what's really interesting about that is if we wanted to spy and listen in on the conversation, we could pick up, which I've caught her doing several. 

To you. 

To me. 

Yes. I don't guess you ever wanted to listen in on her conversation. 

No, not really. Sorry, Tammy. But, you know, I mean, because those conversations when you're like, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old, you might be talking about boys or something. Probably. She probably wanted to know the scoop. So anyway, so you could pick up and listen in or whatever. It was all, but anyway, that was my way. 

Sounds like some healthy family behavior right there. I know that you said there were several times where you instinctively reached for your phone. So what were the things that you were thinking of when you were reaching for your phone that wasn't there? 

So the first thing that I do each morning is I pull up my Bible app on my phone. 

Yep. 

And do my daily Bible reading. I anticipated that before we left. So I took my planner out and I made sure that I made notes on each day what the readings were going to be. 

And that seemed to work out pretty good. 

Yeah, it did. And I've actually missed reading out of a physical Bible. I often go to my phone just because it's convenient and it's easy. But I've actually, since we've been back, probably, I would say about 50% of the time, I actually pick up the physical Bible and read in there rather than just picking up my phone. So it's been nice. I enjoy it. 

And you're using your mom's study Bible, right? 

It's got all the pictures and stuff in it. Yeah, it's got a lot of like historical kind of background. It's got photographs of like archaeological things. It's just, it adds. Kind of just adds to the story. I love it. 

Okay, so is there anything else that you had to do to prepare to be disconnected? 

Yeah, so another thing that I realized before I left was that I reached for my phone to tell the time a lot. 

Okay, yeah, but... 

I see the time and then I get sidetracked by notifications and all the things. So it's like my brain constantly wants to know what time it is and I don't know what that is. I don't wear a watch. 

Okay. 

That would probably be like the. 

Yeah. 

That would probably be a fix. I could probably. 

It's a gift idea right now. 

I need a watch. Then I'm not constantly pulling from my phone because I pull from my phone and I get distracted. 

And then you see the things. 

That's right. 

But you found like there was this little battery alarm clock that you put beside the bed. 

Yes. So it was one I found in a closet when I was cleaning out at my parents' house and stuff in one of my mom's travel bags. 

Okay. 

And it worked perfectly. So I, you know, had to find batteries for it and stuff. But I set it by the bed. And we have other clocks in the RV. Like we have one in the microwave and, you know, in the bathroom and stuff. But. 

At least that was right there. 

That was right there. It was right next to it. And it had the date on it too. Yeah, bonus. It even had the date. 

High tech, very high tech. 

Another thing that I use a lot that I realized is the Notes app on my phone. 

Okay, yeah, I use that too. 

I use it a lot for just random ideas, note-taking, to-do lists, brainstorming. I have so many little notes, but... I solved that by taking an old-fashioned spiral notebook and pen with me. 

Like a quill. 

Yeah, maybe not that old-fashioned. 

Then you just put that away in it. 

Yeah, I just did it the old school way. So if I had like, you know, an idea pop in my head, I'd jot it down in my notebook. Or preparing for this podcast, all my notes were taken in my notebook. 

Yeah, wow. Now I did have my phone with me. 

Yes. 

And so we let all the family know, look, if you really have to get a hold of us, but only in an emergency only, if you have to get a hold of us, then call me and I'll decide if you get to see that or not. 

You were my filter. Yes. And you also took a few pictures. 

I did, yeah. I tried to remember. 

Not nearly as many as I probably would have, but that's okay. This trip really wasn't about the picture, so it's totally fine. Yeah, So let me ask you, what observations did you notice that affected how we typically do things or that directly affected you? 

Well, usually on trips like this, when we're going from one place to another, you are the navigator. 

I am, yeah. 

Which is fine, like I had directions to the state park up on my phone. And I had my Google Maps sitting there on the dash. And so I was following that. But it's like little things like, okay, I can follow turn by turn with Google Maps. But then you always look ahead to see, because we're dragging this 42 foot fifth wheel. You look ahead to see if there's things like a dirt Rd. or like you're looking at the satellite version and you're seeing like some things that Google's not going to pick up on. 

Right. 

And so There was one instance it wasn't a big deal, but we did come up against the turn that was going to be on a dirt Rd. 

Yeah. 

So then I had to ignore that and just keep going, let it reroute us. 

Which as it turns out, I think the way we ended up going was the way we went last time. 

Yeah, it's fine. It was fine. But then at the same time, with our old truck, I'm also playing a little video game on my cell phone where I'm constantly like cancelling codes and trying to keep the thing running because everything on that truck is run by the little, I don't know what it is. It's like a little Microsoft, like tiny little computer inside that says, no, it's dangerous to drive. I'm going to shut your engine off. which is stupid. But anyway, so I'm constantly like resetting that thing and making sure that the truck's still running. And so anyway, so I was hopping back and forth between those two. And at points, my, thankfully it wasn't a long drive. 

No. 

Otherwise my brain would have completely exploded. So there was those things. Like there were things that you would do to get us from one place to another. And I was responsible for that. 

Yeah. 

Which, you know, don't ever trust me. with that kind of responsibility. But I had to do that. 

You did. And another thing that I had to do ahead of time was I texted you our site number beforehand because I had like the reservation e-mail and everything. So I just forwarded that information to you because I wasn't taking my phone so I wouldn't be able to look it up or know where to go. 

And that's another thing. You usually bring up the park map. And where the gatehouse is and where the site's going to be. 

You're going to take a right here and a left there and around this way to our campsite. 

And we had this discussion, like when we were on the way, it's like, how are you supposed to know where we're at? Did you get the site number? And I'm like, yeah, I did somewhere in my textbook. I was somewhere in there. So in the end, I'm like, look, we're going to get to the state park. And there'll be little signs that say the site numbers, and that'll be fine. And if we don't know where we're going, we'll just stop and figure it out. 

But I like to have all those things in order. That's just my thing. 

Anyway. is we also use our cell phones as kind of like walkie-talkies with each other where I'm reversing into a site and I can't see what I'm backing into, especially at this site, because it was kind of a sharp little turn. 

Yeah, it was pretty sharp. 

Cramped space. But so, but we did okay. 

Yeah, we did. 

We used, we've done this hundreds, if not thousands of times. And so we were using hand signals and that kind of thing. I think our neighbor was really impressed that. 

Yeah, I think the trickiest part. part about that, about not having you on the other end of the phone, is I have to stay both where I can see where you're going and you can see me in the mirror. 

Which is not always the same place. 

That's not always the same place. So there's a lot of running back and forth, but there was no yelling, no fussing, and we didn't hit anything. 

No, we didn't hit a single thing. I was being really, really cautious. 

You did. We did good. We did good. We looked like pros. 

Afterwards, we talked to the guy behind us and he's like, you did great. You did great. Of course, his little trailer was like. 

It was one of those little A-frame. I felt bad because we kept coming further back and further back and further back to get off the road. And then we were just almost on top of him. But he was really sweet. It was fine. 

It was okay. 

So I also found myself reaching to my back pocket for my non-existing phone for random things like package tracking. I don't know why. So before we left, I had ordered several things on Amazon. I had ordered an ottoman, which is kind of a big thing too. 

That was a big thing, yeah. 

So, and then I'm like, oh, I wonder when that's going to arrive. I wonder if Tyler's going to be home to bring it inside or because it's going to be a big package on the. So I'm reaching for my phone in my back pocket. And I'm like, my gosh, it's such a habit. Another thing was to stream music. So in our RV, we have the whole surround sound, the Bluetooth, Bluetooth connection and all of that. So I'm like, I want to play some music and reach for my. Oh, I can't do that. Are there any radio stations available? So guess what, though? I survived without either. 

We got by. Yeah. 

Are there any other things that you can think of how me not having my phone affected you either positively or negatively? 

Well, I would say it was all positive. 

Oh, okay. 

It was so good to spend a few days with you where there was absolutely no chance that in the middle of a conversation or on a hike, or ever, that either one of us would have to stop what we were doing, stop what we were saying to answer the phone or answer text message that popped up. You know, when I wanted to talk to you, I could just talk to you. I wouldn't have to wait for you to finish what you were doing on your phone. You were instantly ready to talk with full eye contact. And you have such beautiful eyes. So for a lot of couples, I think there's just an acceptance of this reality that our phones are always needing our attention. And our partners, they just simply know that they either have to be okay with only getting a fraction of their partner's attention or their actual face-to-face conversations are secondary to whatever the latest notification or alert is on our phones. So 1 counseling website described the problem this way. When a partner prioritizes their phone, it can cause the other person to feel devalued, ignored, and disconnected. So there's a term that is used in the counseling world for this type of behavior, and it's a cross between the words phone and snubbing, and it's called phubbing. Phubbing, okay. So the article goes on. If you've had a romantic partner, you've most likely had the maddening experience of realizing that while you were blabbering on about something or another. I never blabber. It's a conversation. Yes, you do. They were focused on their phone. As relationship transgressions go, phubbing, a combination of the words phone and snubbing, is on the surface fairly benign. Yet research increasingly shows it can be insidious. One study found that those who phub a lot are more likely to be phubbed to themselves, creating a kind of ripple effect. It kind of keeps going. So here's a quote. Phubbing can be a range of different behaviors from glancing at your phone in the middle conversation to checking your phone when the conversation stalls out a little bit, or keeping your phone close by. And this is from Anthony Chambers, who is a board certified couple and family psychologist. He said the issue comes up among the couples he works with on a regular basis. 

Yeah, I do think this is a problem. I'm guilty of doing this exact thing. And so do you. 

I do too. 

It's difficult when I think When you add the fact that you are a business owner or a manager of a business, you feel that responsibility, either to your clients or to your employees. It feels like you have to constantly be connected. And I'm not sure that that's a healthy approach. That's something that I personally am working on to not be available all the time. 

Yes. Yeah, but I agree with you. We have responsibilities and we have other people that are relying on us to make decisions or point them in the right direction. I think in the old days, that line between what we do for work So our work time, our work life, and our family time, there was a definite divide between the two. you went to work at a certain time, and you worked for the day. You might want to reach out to your partner for something, but then you'd have to think, now, is this an emergency? Is this something, I don't want to get them in trouble at work, that kind of thing, which sometimes happens today, but there are a lot of situations where, people are working from home. So like me, I work from home and, although I have hours of business on my website and that kind of stuff, I mean, at the end of the day, if someone needs something, then, they're gonna contact me and then I have a choice over whether I answer or not. Sure. And a lot of people, they have a side gig. You know, they're taking orders from something they have placed on Amazon or eBay or whatever. So there are simply too many ways nowadays to be able to instantly communicate with anyone you want to at any time for free. It's just too easy. Yeah, So do you remember the days when we used to get charged by the minute for a phone call or by the text? Like every text, like you had a certain amount in your plan and then every text over that was extra. 

I think when we actually started talking on the phone back in our early years of talking and dating and stuff. 

On the telephone. 

On the telephone in the little red telephone box. 

In the telephone box. I used to freeze in that telephone box. 

I had to go and get... phone cards because long distance calls, especially to another country, were just ridiculous. We ran up to phone 

bills in those days. 

Yeah, but I would go and buy these prepaid phone cards and then I would call you on those. And that was How we did it. We didn't have cell phones back then. 

You were just conscious of every single time you got on the phone. 

Yeah, it was going to cost money. 

Yeah. How much is this going to cost? Is there another way to do this? Should I wait until tomorrow? 

Right. 

You were constantly thinking. 

Are night minutes cheaper than day minutes or whatever. 

And now you even have read receipts. So like the person on the other end, like they know that. 

Do you have that turned on? 

Yeah. Doesn't everyone? 

No. 

I don't. You don't? 

No. I don't want people to know if I've read their text message or not. 

How do you even turn that off? 

I'll show you after we record. It's fine. 

Okay. I didn't know about that. Okay. 

So on this trip we took, I did a lot of brainstorming and soul searching. 

Okay. 

I definitely miss the freedom of the RV lifestyle. 

Oh my goodness. 

A lot. 

Yeah. 

There was a part of me that just wanted to. 

Just keep going. 

Move back in and just start traveling again. Just leave from Backbone State Park and go to. 

I don't care. Yeah, we could do one of my trips. Like we could go to Southeast Idaho and then Wall and then, we could go from there to the Grand Canyon. 

Yeah, just, yeah, all in a day. All in a day is time. It'll be fun. A weekend. Oh my gosh, that's why you don't navigate or plan. No, I have no concept. Anyway, but here we are. As long as Tyler's in school, he's a junior this year. 

He is. 

I'll have to just speak in. With little getaways like we did this time, which is fine. 

When do we get to go next? 

I don't know. This trip was a result of me hitting complete burnout. 

Yeah, you were done. 

I had nothing left. You didn't. I cannot let things get to that point again. 

No. 

It definitely did me good to step away and just completely recharge for a few days. 

Yep. And since we've been back, you've been taking some serious steps to reinforce those boundaries and plan yourself out of things that were consuming your time and energies. 

Yes. Now, that was a lot. So going forward, I will definitely be doing things a little differently. And standing my ground on things because I can't. 

That can happen. 

I've got too many irons in the fire, too many things that I'm involved in that I want to be involved in, and I cannot work seven days a week every single week. I have to have. 

Time. Yes. 

So I really, on this trip, enjoyed doing some of the things that I never have time for anymore. 

So what are some of those things that you want to make time for? 

Before we left, I went to the library and I checked out some books. Oh, I need to return those. 

Oh dear. 

I'm not very good at this game. So, but I did read a whole book. You can leave that in, that's fine. Sorry, Bellevue Library. I took a journal. So I did some journaling, which was really nice. That really kind of like... 

Yeah. 

it helps me. So I took some of my art stuff, which I didn't use all of it, but I did a lot of, I have one of those kind of like, I don't know. 

It was like a coloring book. 

It's like an adult coloring book, but it has like Bible verses in it. So it's like, to me, When I'm coloring something like that, it's just a very reflective, meditative, yeah, relaxing thing. 

Yeah, you did that a lot. 

Yeah, I did a lot of, I did a lot of coloring, which is funny, but I did. Cooking. 

Yes. 

I love to cook. I love having time. 

I love you cooking. 

I love to have time to cook. I'm hoping as the weather gets cooler, I like to bake. So really hoping for some more time with that. But And I think on our trip I took a nap every single day. 

Every day, yeah. 

And I am not a napper. 

No, you're not. No, I would go in there and you're piled up on the bed with the dogs and fast asleep. 

When I say I had nothing left, I literally had nothing left. So I took a nap every single day. We grilled out. 

We did a lot. 

Which was wonderful because we had our little fire pit, we had a Dutch oven, all the things. 

Well, there was one evening where we got the campfire going and we got the Dutch oven and we kind of like assessed what ingredients we had and we made an entire meal over that campfire with the Dutch oven. We did. I think it was amazing. It took about two hours. It did. 

We didn't care. 

It didn't matter. 

That's the thing. Like when you're camping, like. 

You've got time. 

Time is not a... Oh, it was amazing. It was just amazing. Another thing we did was we went for several hikes with the dogs. 

We did. We tried to do We were very intentional. And we said, okay, this is time away, but we got to have a little bit of a plan. 

Yeah. So you said we wanted to be. I really wanted to be in nature. Like I wanted to feel that. I wanted to go on a hike. I wanted to. So we found a couple of trails that were not like. 

Forever long. 

Forever long or super difficult or whatever. So they were just moderate trails. And we took the dogs with us. And it was just beautiful. beautiful and peaceful and just soul-filling. 

And we've been there before and there was a couple, one trial that we did again and we took all those same wrong turns as we did last time. We're like, I think we did this last time. 

Yeah, we did. But 

then there was another trial that we went on that we hadn't been on before and that was really cool. Yeah, it was cool. 

It was cool. And I just enjoyed every moment. In fact, I enjoyed it so much. I didn't want it to end. 

So, and on our way back, when we got close to home, you suddenly and very uncharacteristically called a spontaneous audible. 

I did. 

And diverted us to the local county park. I did. Because I think you weren't ready to go back or something. 

I just, I wasn't, no. 

So we ended up. going to the county park, which is just as you're coming into Bellevue. So like we were almost home. And then we just suddenly took a left turn, like the RV was skipping along on its side. And we screeched around, screeched around the corner and got ourselves a sight by the Mississippi there. So it was. 

It was nice. And I still had to work those coming days and stuff. But it meant that I had some, we got to retreat like right next to the river and it was nice. 

It doesn't get better than that. And we used to do this stuff all of the time. We would hear about somewhere that was connected with, you know, whatever our kids were studying for their schoolwork. And we'd be like, oh, we're not very far away from that place. We should totally like take a little detour and go around there. Or we would hear about where our camping friends were going, and we were like, Can we tag along? 

Yeah, we'll meet you there. 

And then we would go off for like a couple of weeks somewhere different, because that's where we were living. So it was fantastic to have the freedom to be able to do that. was so cool. 

It was. I know. We'll do it again. I have no doubt about that. There are many benefits to our life in Bellevue. Yes, there are. Don't get me wrong. We absolutely love this place. If you are a Bellevue person and you love us and you don't want us to leave, have no fear. It's okay. We have just found ourselves trying to not fall back into an overwhelmingly jam-packed life. 

A bricks and sticks life. 

Yeah. where we don't get to enjoy the things that we've worked so hard to achieve. It's hard to go back to that. When we were in that, and then we had the freedom of the RV lifestyle, and now we're starting to kind of find ourselves falling back into that, and that's hard. So we so intentionally, quote unquote, unplugged from the rat race all those years ago when we were full-time RVing. It was a very intentional decision and extremely liberating. But for now, I'm attempting to carry on, but to have some very intentional boundaries in place. And I'm already looking forward to my next opportunity to unplug. 

And may it be soon, very soon. 

There are many instances in the New Testament where Jesus went away to unplug. He would go off by himself to be alone with God for prayer, reflection, and to recharge. These instances are described as happening frequently, often, and regularly in various locations such as mountains, the wilderness, and gardens. They also often include preparation for major decisions. such as choosing his 12 disciples, and for coping with grief, like after learning of John the Baptist's death. 

Sometimes after periods of intense activity or ministry, he would withdraw to rest and be renewed. In Mark 1, it is recorded that after an exhausting day of ministry to the sick, early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place to pray. 

Another instance was after the 12 disciples returned from the missions they had been sent out on, and before Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000. In Mark 6, verses 30 through 32, it says, the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they didn't even have a chance to eat, he said to them, come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 

As you can see, this kind of unplugged time mattered to Jesus. In Luke 5, verse 16, the Bible tells us, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. 

Jesus sought this wherever he could find it. It's how he prepared for wonderful things like the Sermon on the Mount and for terrible things like the cross. It has been quite a while since I've spent this kind of time, real time, alone with God. It was so incredibly refreshing. How about you? When was the last time you consciously unplugged and reconnected with God? 

Referring back to the verse you read a minute ago, there were so many people coming and going that Jesus' disciples didn't even have a chance to eat. How many times have you come home from work and said, I haven't even eaten today? 

I would say more often than not. Sadly, the rush of things for them was all-consuming. I can 100% relate to that. That's why unplugging was absolutely what I needed. 

So our question to you today and to ourselves is, when was the last time you unplugged and spent time, real time, alone with God? 

We are so quick to pick up our phones when we're bored or overstimulated to quote unquote check out. But what if instead of going to our phones, we went to a quiet place to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to recharge us? That's our challenge to you and to ourselves this week. Maybe you can't unplug for five days like I did. That was a lot. But maybe you can choose an hour or two in the evenings to turn your phone off and focus on the people around you. 

Or maybe you're a morning person and you can get up 30 minutes earlier than usual and start your day unplugged, but with prayer and meditation. 

Unplugging from our devices and constant connectivity offers significant benefits for our mental health, sleep, relationships and productivity. Unplugging allows our brains to rest and recharge, which can improve your overall well-being. 

And that is today's beautiful view. 

Thank you for joining us today. Our hope is always to inspire and encourage our listeners. So we hope this episode gave you a few things to think about. Are you over-connected? Can you schedule some time to unplug and recharge your batteries this week? 

If you like what we do here at the Beautiful View Podcast, you can show your appreciation by becoming a supporting member for only $5 a month. We'll send you a members only Beautiful View podcast sticker and a weekly encouraging newsletter to your inbox. Your support helps cover our production costs. The link to sign up is in our show notes. 

And also be sure to follow Beautiful View podcast on Facebook or Instagram. Those links are also in our show notes. 

As we conclude each podcast, we always like to give the topic for the next episode. So what are we going to talk about next time? 

We are going to be talking about encouragement. 

Okay. 

How encouragement benefits us and how we can all be better encouragers. whether it comes naturally to us or not. 

That sounds very encouraging. Talking about things we can do to encourage each other. If you are anywhere close to Lufkin, Texas on Sunday evening, November 16th, then stop by City Church at 6 P.m. for a night of hope. It has been one year since we gathered to celebrate the life of our friend Tyler. His wife, Kelsey, and their girls, Mia and Amy, wanted to mark this milestone by continuing along the path of healing and hope. We are sure this will be a beautiful night. It will. 

Thank you once again for joining us today. We hope you have a great day and remember to always keep an eye open for opportunities in life to see a beautiful view. 

Yes.