A few weeks ago a friend of mine e-mailed me about his vacation in Maine. It was nice, he said, except for the shopping. On what seemed like the umpteenth outing to a shopping plaza, he finally threw a fit, and demanded to be brought home. I could totally relate to this feeling because I hate shopping, too, and whenever I go to Maine my mother tries to drag me off to the store so she can buy me new clothes, and I always resist, even though I’d rather get clothes for free than pay for them. Then my friend raised a question to which I had no answer. “I seriously cannot understand why people are drawn to places of great natural beauty, then find the need to get in their cars and go to the jumbo sized mall,” he wrote.

This is something I’ve often wondered about. Sure, when I was a kid there would usually be one day during our vacation when it rained and we would head off to the mall for the day. We didn’t have a mall in the town where I grew up, and the mall seemed like this exciting wonderland. There was a bookstore there, as well as a pet store, and when I got a little older I liked going to the music store. So perhaps these shopping plazas are just full of hicks like me, taking advantage of their one opportunity to visit a mall. But I seriously doubt it. In any case, the Maine mall is this huge, busy circus, crammed full of tourists and bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I pretty much avoid it like the plague.

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time at a lake in Vermont with friends; their relatives from Ohio also joined us. It was a beautiful, relaxing spot, but on the second day there the in-laws and their teenage children zipped off to Rutland, Vt., to go shopping. The next day we discussed whether to go to Manchester, Vt., or Lake George, or perhaps take a trip to the outlet stores in Burlington. It was a little bit rainy, but as we set off for Manchester, I couldn’t help but regret our decision, because the lake was so peaceful and calm, and I happen to like the sound of the rain.

This summer has been busy and a little bit chaotic, and so last week I made my first trek of the season to the Adirondacks, where I hiked Cascade and Porter, two of the high peaks, and relatively easy climbs at that. But even easy climbs present certain challenges, and when I reached the summit of Cascade I was happy to recline on the rock and take in the panoramic view. Suddenly, all the pain was worth it, because the sky was clear and the view was spectacular. “There’s nothing quite like being on top of a mountain,” my friend said, and I agreed. We sat there for a while, doing and saying little, and then we started our descent. It was mentally and physically rewarding, this feeling of being out in the woods and exerting ourselves. We were dirty and sweaty and sort of gross by the end of the hike, and the first thing I did when I got home was take a shower. Then I checked my e-mail and switched on the Olympics and talked to a friend on the phone. Because as nice as it was to be out of touch and far away for the day, I was happy to reconnect.

A couple of years ago I read the book “The Age of Missing Information” by environmentalist Bill McKibben. The book was inspired by a little experiment he did: He tape recorded a day’s worth of television, every single channel, and then watched the shows and commercials that aired during this time. The idea, he said, was to take a close look at television content, and what it says about us, the viewers. He then contrasts the experience of watching all this TV with a day spent hiking in the mountains by himself. His premise is that even though we’re constantly inundated with information, we’re missing out on some pretty basic things, such as a true sense of seasonal change, and our place in the natural world.

It was around the time that I read “The Age of Missing Information” that I really began making a concerted effort to get outside more, particularly during the summer. I never had to make a concerted effort to get outside when I was younger, and spent my summers at camp or in Maine, but now that I live in Albany things are different, and it’s all too easy to fall into a pattern of going to the movies and concerts and fiddling around on the computer and never really getting outside. That’s why, when I actually have the chance to hang out at a lake, or in the mountains, I like to take advantage of it. But that’s just me. There are always going to be people who want to visit The Gap during their vacation.