Mappy June
Sleeping in "Hotel Prius" / Magic Switch / Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore / Thai Yoga Massage / Great Stand-ups / One Night Stands / Creative Anxiety / 4 Types of Wealth
New on MappyEverAfter: The “Hotel Prius": A Masterclass in Rest Area Car Camping
AI Shenanigans: Try Canva’s Magic Switch For Free
Travel: South Dakota - Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore
Health: Try Thai Yoga Massage
Watch: 3 of my Favorite Stand Up Routines
Read: Chelsea Handler’s “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands”
Mental Hack: 4 Types of Wealth
Just because: Fredrik Backman on Creative Anxiety and Procrastination
Note: I will always tell you if I’m getting any referral bonuses and how much they are. There’s one in this letter - an Amazon link to Chelsea Handler’s book. I assume I’d get a few cents if you buy it using my link. Your library probably has it for free.
New on my MappyEverAfter website - The “Hotel Prius": A Masterclass in Rest Area Car Camping
Day 44 on the road and the American landscape continues to delight. We've traced the faded glory of Route 66 and now find ourselves meandering back west through the northern states.
Yesterday was South Dakota’s smorgasbord of awesomeness. Mt Rushmore’s stone-faced presidents, the ever-changing Crazy Horse, Custer State Park where hundreds of buffalo roam, blissfully unaware of their tourist appeal, and the off-the-charts scenic Needles Highway. Today we hiked clock-wise around the Devil’s Tower, the otherworldly geological oddity that starred in the “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” movie. Now, I'm typing this missive from The Fix, a quaint coffee shop in Buffalo, Wyoming, where the caffeine is strong and the Wi-Fi is blessedly fast.
It’s a delicate dance between penny-pinching and well-worth-it splurges. Most nights find us stretched out in the back of our trusty Prius at roadside rest areas that dot the American highways. When the siren call of a proper shower becomes too strong to ignore, we cash in our Hyatt points for a night of crisp sheets and a breakfast buffet (read about our travel hacking here).
Despite its quirks and challenges, this nomadic existence makes me feel the most alive.
AI Shenanigans - Canva’s Magic Switch
The Rundown: Canva, a graphic design and editing platform owned by an Australian tech founder Melanie Perkins, has an AI feature called ‘Magic Switch that automatically converts your presentations into a blog post, summary, email, or even a poem.
Step-by-step:
Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Canva Pro and check out the Magic Switch
Open your presentation in Canva
Click on “Resize & Magic Switch” in the top bar
Select “Transform into Doc” and select your desired form, for example, “Blog Post”
In a few seconds, it’ll generate an entire blog post draft based on the presentation
There’s lots more to Canva’s Magic Studio to help you create, edit, design, and play. Have fun.
Travel - Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore
Mount Rushmore, the striking spectacle of American pride, and Crazy Horse, the haunting testament to multi-generational stubbornness, dedication, and a big middle finger to the American government, are two colossal monuments carved into the ancient granite of the Black Hills in South Dakota.
They sit just a stone's throw from each other (if you can throw a stone 16 miles) but couldn't be more different in spirit.
Our first attempt to see Rushmore was thwarted by Mother Nature. We stood there, squinting uselessly into the thick fog covering the whole mountain.
We came back a couple of days later, using our $10 parking ticket (valid for a year, though they don't advertise this fact). We grabbed a fresh parking ticket to get in, then used our old one to get out without paying again. Finally seeing the dead presidents emerging from the granite was undeniably impressive.
Crazy Horse Memorial (started in 1948) loomed even larger, both in scale and in mission.
After chatting with the Ziolkowski family still working to complete their ancestors’ vision, we were glad to have paid the $15/per person entry fee and an extra $5 for the bus ride to the base and tour. As you stand there, gazing up at the emerging face of the Lakota warrior, you feel connected to their cause to preserve Native American culture.
Crazy Horse entry ticket is good for 7 days, just ask for a free re-entry pass at the information desk.
As we drove off into the sunset, I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd just experienced something uniquely, absurdly American, both before and after the “discovery” of the continent.
Health - Thai Yoga Massage
I love this gentle, loving Thai yoga massage video. We play it at 50% speed and follow along. Grab your partner or a friend and give it a try.
Watch - 3 of my Favorite Stand-up Comedians
Trever Noah - Watch for free on Tubi, or with a subscription on AppleTV
Ricky Gervais - Super Nature Netflix special
Russel Brand - Messiah Complex is currently hard to find, maybe you’ll have better luck. His Netflix special Re-birth and his infamous appearance on Morning Joe also crack me up.
Read - Chelsea Handler, “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands”
If you like talking to a brutally honest friend over a glass of wine about her most outrageous one-night stands, try “My Horizontal Life” by Chelsea Handler. In her zero-filter style, she walks you through her romantic (mis)adventures that will have you snorting into your coffee and blushing simultaneously.
Mental Hack - Four Types of Wealth
There are at least 4 types of wealth:
Financial wealth (money)
Social wealth (status)
Time wealth (freedom)
Physical wealth (health)
Be wary of jobs that lure you in with 1 and 2, but rob you of 3 and 4.
-James Clear
Just Because - Creative Anxiety and Procrastination
Do yourself a favor and watch (or just listen to) this utterly brilliant 4-minute speech by Fredrik Backman, the author of “A Man Called Ove” (the English film version with Tom Hanks is titled “A Man Called Otto”)
Shoutout to Brandon of SemiRad for introducing me to this little gem.
So there you have it. Hope you manage to escape the comfort trap and have some unadulterated fun!
Be Mappy,
Mags
