OptOutside

This morning I find myself at the Salt Lake airport waiting to catch a flight to Tokyo, Japan. I take this trip every year and have to fly out on a Saturday so I can be there on Monday for a conference I host. The thing that makes the trip difficult is that I have to cut my Thanksgiving break short by 2 days. I wish I could schedule this for a different weekend but it coincides with another company-wide event and so I don't get to dictate the dates of the conference.

Every year before Thanksgiving we are bombarded with ads for "Black Friday Sales." Several years ago, a number of outdoor suppliers and retailers like Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI) created a movement to give up a day of fighting shopping lines and spend the day outside. They call the event #OptOutside. REI even went so far as to keep their stores closed on Black Friday. As someone with a daughter that used to work in retail, I can support that. This year it helped that Alta's opening day happened yesterday and so I had something fun to do outside. I got to spend it with my daughter, wife, and son. We had a great time.

While it may be too late to buck the usual shopping trend and spend the day after Thanksgiving outside, it is not too late to think about how you can spend part of this Christmas season enjoying the outdoors. While computers and technology are great, sometimes it takes a walk outside on a crisp December morning to realized how wonderful the outdoors can be. I highly encourage it.