16 Days and Counting

It's been 16 days since we gave the keys to the renters.

SABBATICAL!

Since Lassen, and the epically awesome stay with friends of family at Lake Almanor, we've had a very busy week.  First, we drove to Bend, staying there for a few days and eating good food, drinking good beer, and catching up with several good friends (and extended family), including one set of friends where the wife was polite enough to wait until after dinner to have their next child (like 5 hours after she patiently managed her 4 year old and ate dinner with us, she had their son).

Tumalo Falls, the start of a great hike.

Stereotypical trail views on the hike.

Yet another falls view as the hike follows the river.

More gorgeous falls.

And more.

Happy Valley, the turn around for the 8 mile out and back hike.

From there, we drove to Seattle and stayed for 5 nights, catching up with too many friends to count and going to a good friend's wedding.

Despite being gone for 16 days, there have been so many details to manage for most of those days.  It hasn't *really* been being on sabbatical.  Sure, we hiked Lassen and Tumalo falls before Seattle, but for the most part, once we got to Seattle, we were just managing driving schedules, sleeping situations, laundry, and planning for the next few weeks.  It was more demanding than I expected -- I thought *not working* or at least *working very little* would be very relaxing, but it turns out it takes a lot of overhead to get to the most relaxed state, and we're still working on it, even now, and it's not relaxing until you're there.

Except in random moments.  When you're on the freeway between sleeping locations and one of the very few clients you are *sort* of working for calls, and you decide, Nahhh, I think I'm already out of service on this one, I'll pick it up when I get back into civilization.

And all of a sudden, you realize you are *actually* on sabbatical.

For this, Seattle was a nice transition point.  Many final logistical issues, including shopping for necessary items we hadn't yet acquired, shipping keys and documents back to clients, re-configuring the car to be more road-trip friendly, generally closing out our relationships with the real corporate world and getting them on board with our future state of availability (while still technically being available 24X7 even if we didn't like it) and also, fully in the city where we could take Lyft to and from events if we wanted to have more than one drink in the evening.  It'll be a while before we can enjoy that particular benefit of balance of dropping out of the corporate world while being surrounded by people who understand the demands and benefits of both worlds again...

Today, we left Seattle for Kamloops, BC, Canada.  The border crossing was more intense than I expected, but I suppose a land entry at a not-common port-of-entry with no committed date of departure, a driver who admits to being a gun owner, and two entrants who both are "not working" is the type of thing that might want to result in some additional questioning...  Spoiler alert -- after additional questioning, Canada still let us in.  The drive from Seattle to Kamloops was breathtakingly gorgeous, and according to the locals, it can't hold a candle to tomorrow's drive to Jasper...
 

One of many gorgeous views on this drive.

Another unbelievable view, simply beautiful.

Happily, when there's time and we aren't hiking, I'm running (with friends in cities where I have them), or working out.  I'm very happy to report that this week's total mileage (running, hiking and walking where it seemed long enough to record) is just shy of 40.  I hope to keep it in this range.

Onward...