Life is Short

When I was 6 years old, I broke down in a horrific crying fit in the shower, absolutely devastated with the realization that I was going to die one day.  I don't remember what triggered it.

Hadn't been to the Palace of Fine Arts in years -

Saturday's Post Parkrun Brunch walk put us there.  With Friends.  How great!

I do remember that my parents were out and the poor baby sitter had to try to manage me until they returned.  Even when they did return, both my mom and my dad were obviously a bit flummoxed on how to deal with me.

Eventually, I just learned that my preoccupation with death, and the likelihood/proximity of it for myself and everyone I knew was not, like many of the ways I viewed the world, "normal."  But, it does motivate many of the choices I make.

Doing our sabbatical year while we were both young and healthy was very important to me.  My *life-is-short* concept is always pushing me to do the things I want to do while I can.  I'm so grateful we were able to take the time off and enjoy visiting all of the friends, family, and foreign places we enjoyed.

The beaches of Portugal -- one of many sabbatical experiences I cherish.

Similarly, my *life-is-short* mentality puts me in a frame of mind where being able to run (or hike or even walk) at all is such a blessing.  I can't help but view my daily physical efforts against the specter of potential diseases or injuries (hello car accidents, friend's husband who died of a heart attack at 37, my quadriplegic Brother, and every other person I've known in any way who's ever died younger than 70). 

Often, this means I just don't have the same level of drive to outperform myself or PR than I otherwise would.  After last week's fiery smoking down week, I had big plans to run from Emeryville out to Yerba Buena Island on the bay bridge and back on Monday.  But, when I went outside, the smell of smoke and limited view of the Oakland hills quickly changed my plans.  Instead I walked easily for 4 miles in the poor air quality and then tacked some hard short speedwork on the TM interspersed with free weights and calisthenics in the hotel gym.  Life is much too short to struggle through a run in nasty air quality that will likely negatively affect me more than missing a workout.

Liquor store in North Beach, SF

Tuesday, I returned to the yoga studio.  I'm doing a decent job of getting in once a week (4 times in the last 5 weeks with an off week for SJRNR), and that's likely where it will stay for a while because it appears to take me 3-4 days to recover from yoga these days.  I am seriously out of yoga shape!  The soreness!

Wednesday, I had a big work day, so I just worked and took a rest day (and let the soreness from the yoga keep me from too much physical activity).  My new desk treadmill arrived, so I now have a fully functional sit/stand/treadmill desk configuration (minus the swiveling monitor).  It's so nice to have an ergonomically awesome home office situation -- my old set up was a desk I bought 15+ years ago when my only criteria was cheapness, a broken office chair purchased from a startup I worked at that went out of business, and whatever else I cobbled together over the years.  It all went the way of Goodwill, the dump, or curbside free pick-up when we packed up.  And now, thanks to E doing all the research and acquiring most of the components (other than the treadmill) I'm excited to have a fancy functional workspace that will allow me to walk while doing non-seriously demanding work/life tasks.

I almost never splurge on *stuff* - the new office set up is a BIG DEAL for me.

Thursday, I wasn't feeling it, so I headed out for whatever I could muster with no judgment.  What I could muster was 2.73 easy miles @ 12:51 plus 1.74 walk/jog home.  This was one of those days when the reality of how privileged I am to move without pain weighs in and changes my perspective from one of disappointment at how I didn't come close to hitting the assigned workout to one of gratitude that I can move at all.  I understand that this perspective may be limiting my physical performance by giving me permission to make less effort than what I could probably do.  But, I can only assume that going out for some effort without stress is best for my overall quality of life and joy.  Also, I got some bad news about a family member's health that day that only solidified my choice of perspective.

Friday, I was in a hotel for work and fit in a super short 0.5 mile interval workout with weights and medicine ball efforts between ladders from 10mpm down to 9:19 mpm at 1% incline.  It was less than half an hour, but better than nothing.

One of the most beautiful finishes for a run. 

Also, what a flattering picture -- do I look excited to stop my watch or what?

Saturday I did the Crissy Field parkrun with E and a friend from Seattle, C.  I love C, she's the closest friend (other than E) that I had when we lived in Seattle and I only get to see her once or twice a year now.  I also love the Crissy Field parkrun.  It's such a beautiful location, the people who run the group are so kind, and it's a great way to start the day by running a 5K with views of the Golden Gate Bridge alongside people from all around the world.  I managed a 10:24/mile average pace, which included a stop for C to retie her shoes. I had hoped for a faster showing, but it wasn't available for me that day.

Sunday was a gloriously lazy day.  I did 4 very easy miles @ 12:27, followed by 15X30 seconds hard with 90 seconds walking recovery for 6.4 total miles.  E and I had lunch downtown, I went grocery shopping for the week, and a friend visiting from Texas came over to grill rib-eyes for dinner.  Lazy easy Sundays at home are definitely one of the best things about being back in our regular life.  And life is definitely too short not to take advantage of them and appreciate them when they are available.

Smoke

The California wildfires last week were shocking.  I have family in the area.  Thankfully, their home and they were not affected by the fires.  But they easily could have been.

I took Monday as an easy day post race and walked 1 mile.  Tuesday, I was surprised to realize my legs felt tighter than expected from the race and I decided to take a second down day, walking 4 miles to and from downtown in lieu of a real workout.

Wednesday, track club was canceled to allow for recovery (almost all members had raced on the weekend).  I woke to the news of the fires and relief at the updates confirming that my family was safe.  For lunch, most of the members of my track club and I went to a local winery and then to lunch to celebrate 2 birthdays and several successful races.  On the drive back into town, I was amazed at how smoky it was.  I immediately had flashbacks to our smoggy visit to Shanghai.

I remembered how crappy I felt after a day of sightseeing in the smog and I vowed not to run until the air quality had returned to the gloriously awesome levels that we regularly enjoy in the bay area.

Tomato gifts went into pico de gallo for halibut tacos (also a gift from our fisherman friend)

So yeah, no running Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.   The poor air quality each day brought home the reality of the suffering of those experiencing the fires in a way that was very uncomfortably real.  I've always known that fires were common in California, and terrible, but not being able to see to the end of the streets in our neighborhood was overwhelming and depressing.  I can't imagine how those who lost their homes must feel.

Friday, I did motivate enough to go do a yoga class (my yoga studio has some heated classes and in connection with the heat, they have a filtration system), which kicked my butt in a good way.  In hindsight I should have gone on all of the days I couldn't run, but I'm still in a love/hate relationship with yoga right now, so once a week is acceptable progress.

Saturday AM, I woke to blue skies and joyfully headed out for 6 easy miles.  It's so nice to have returned to a level of fitness where I can just go out and do 6 miles.  Sure, they were relatively slow (11:52/mile), but it wasn't a struggle at all and didn't require much mental effort to push myself through it without stopping (except for water fountains).

Sunday, in contrast, was a workout failure.  I jogged to the trailhead as my planned warmup of a little over 1 mile.  Then, I attempted to do 2 intervals at 9:39/mile for 1.3 miles each with E.  We started out a bit fast, but at around 0.5 miles there is a bridge over the train tracks.  The elevation change slowed my average pace quite a bit and by the time I crested the apex, I needed to recover a full minute from my average pace to hit the target time.  I was breathing hard and it was clear to me that I couldn't recover that time and sustain the required pace for 1.3 miles (which was super disappointing, but what can you do?).  So, I yelled ahead to E to let him know I'd changed the plan and would only be doing 0.75 mile intervals.  They were consistent -- 9:58/mile and 9:57/mile with 4ish minutes of walking recovery between them.  From there I jog-walked home.  By effort it was a very solid workout.  But, in terms of performance, it was not.

Sunday afternoon, I met up with 2 awesome local runners at the hippest bar I've been to in ages.  It was fun to chat and catch up and hang out with people who normally only see me at my sweatiest.  From there, E and I met for dinner with dear friends in Oakland that we hadn't seen in at least a 15 months.

And just like that, another week has passed.  Certainly, time seems to fly much faster now than it did during the sabbatical.  Work and taxes and general life overhead doesn't stand out or make the time stretch the way that new and unique experiences do (often with frustration).  On the other hand, I have successfully strung a few months of good workout consistency and healthy food at home, which I definitely didn't do during the sabbatical, so that's an obvious upside.

It Was Bound To Happen

I learned some shocking (to me) news this week about someone I thought I knew (or at least sort of understood).  Turns out, their life changed in totally unpredictable ways while we were away, and in connection with those changes, their behavior changed drastically as well.

It's like I never even knew them at all. (In fairness, there appear to be many people who feel this way.)

When I've brought this up with friends, many of them have mentioned similar surprising evolutions on the part of their parents or other close family or friends in recent years.  The term "mid-life crisis" has come up more than I'd like to admit (Because really?  I don't want to think about the definition of mid-life, okay?).  Regardless of what you call it, it's just odd and challenging to have to recalibrate your relationships with people when they decide (or are forced) to reboot their lives in a way that is very foreign to your idea of who they are.

At one of our BBQs, a long lost friend reappeared.  She'd decided a few years ago to put some distance between us because we were close friends with her ex.  But then, out of the blue, she showed up. With a baby! (I'd heard she'd gotten married, but a baby? Wow!)  Apparently, enough has changed for her, that she no longer feels any need for distance or avoidance of the ex, which is wonderful for us, as we'd missed her.

In the face of all of these surprising developments, despite my hopes to the contrary, one of my family members continued to behave in annoyingly predictable ways and after 5 years, it was too much.  I finally had to double down and legally engage with serious drama that I'd really hoped I could avoid.  I suspect this family member viewed this move on my part as a serious change, whereas I simply saw it as the necessary last escalation that I'd been trying so hard to manoeuver around.

People are full of surprises, except when they aren't.

Either way, it's weird to be slowly reintegrating back to our home-based lives and observing the evolutions that happened (or didn't) in our absence.  We experienced many things that changed us on our sabbatical year, but it turns out, some of the folks we didn't see in the year (or longer) went through larger transformations.

Sabbatical Data Part 2: Lodging Costs and Travel Tricks

If you are taking a year off work to travel, one of your biggest issues is likely minimizing costs.  And, one of the biggest costs of life (regardless of location) is the price of lodging.  So, I did everything I could to minimize these costs (while occasionally splurging because it was, after all, our big Sabbatical year, and some opportunities may never present themselves again).

Hard data:  we paid an average of $68.12 per night for lodging for the year.  That's a total of $25,477.26 for two people for the year+ (374 nights), spread over 25 countries of varying socioeconomic situations.

If we eliminate the 7 night live-aboard boat trip in the Galapagos, our average nightly cost for the year is $56.78.  The Galapagos was, no doubt, our biggest splurge, but there were a few others, and I'm confident that we could have subbed out one or two locations to replace some of the more expensive lodging with more reasonably priced options to get the average nightly lodging cost down below $50/night for 2 people ($18,250 for 2 for the year).

If you wanted to, you could push this number *much* lower. When not staying with friends or family for free, we always opted for a private room with its own bathroom (except in Iceland, where in-room bathrooms were too expensive).  There are many places in the world where you could spend significantly less than $68.12 per night for very safe and comfortable lodging for 2 with an in-room bathroom (we visited many of them).  And, of course, if you are willing to stay in rooms with shared bathrooms, or dormitory style shared sleeping areas with beds, you could definitely spend less.

So, how did we get to these numbers?

1. Stayed with Friends and Family. We intended to do this as much as possible, and we did.  In total, we spent 107 nights of the year with friends and family who offered to put us up for free (or dinner, or whatever).  Essentially, if you were our friend or family and had let us know you had a place for us to sleep, we did our best to route our travels near you to take advantage.  This came with all sorts of benefits we weren't expecting.  First, we went to a bunch of places we wouldn't have otherwise gone.  Second, you get to know people (and their children) on a level that is unique when you are in their living space.  So many of our friends and family welcomed us into their homes and as a result we became so much closer with them by observing, in situ, their realities.  The flexibility required by unplanned travel is *ideal* for staying with friends and family.  We were so not our typical American working selves -- no real expectations or needs around timing, just a general sense that maybe something like food or laundry or a shower should happen in the next 12 hours or so.  This made us very easy to insert into all sorts of friends' and family's lives and focus on what we could do to have fun with them in a manner that didn't disrupt their daily routines.  It was awesome.

2. Hyatt Points.  For several years prior to the Sabbatical year, I'd been playing the hotel, airline, credit card points/miles game -- I enjoy it the way people enjoy gambling -- I like to play against the house.  For the year of travel, I'd saved up and we maximized like crazy. 

First, I have a Hyatt credit card for my business.  For many years, I charged as many of my business expenses as possible on it, earning Hyatt points for each purchase.  Also, whenever I have to travel for work, I try to stay in Hyatts.  And, finally, when traveling for personal reasons, I also try to stay in Hyatts. 

So, the Sabbatical year, we spent quite a few nights at Hyatts, spending points and earning points to try to maintain my Diamond/Globalist status (which comes with several perks like late checkout up to 4 PM and free access to Hyatt Clubs on properties that have them - where you can eat dinner and breakfast for free, plus enjoy free non-alcoholic drinks all day, and free/discounted alcoholic drinks during a happy hour in the evenings).  All told, we spent 56 nights in Hyatts this year and we paid an average price per night of $79.29, which is much less than the average price we spent per night for non-friend&family lodging of $95.42.  Plus, our Hyatt nights tended to be luxurious breaks from more adventurous budget travel as they typically had amenities like free bottled water, fancy in-room coffee, a full gym, pool, hot tub, and, of course, the higher end properties had amazing views, locations, and Hyatt Clubs that we full utilized.

3 Nights - Calgary Hyatt Regency - $76 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
3 Nights - Chicago Hyatt Regency - $100 + points (discounted points+cash rate, plus a free suite upgrade).
3 Nights - Cleveland Hyatt Regency - $55 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
1 Night  -  Pittsburg Hyatt House - $55 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Toronto Hyatt Regency - $84.80 + points for 1 points+cash night.  1 free night on points.
1 Night  -  Portland Old Port Hyatt Place - $81.75 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Raleigh Hyatt Place - $50 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Park Hyatt Mendoza - $55 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
1 Night  - Hyatt Regency San Francisco - $269 full rate.
1 Night  - Hyatt Place San Jose - $55 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
3 Nights - Grand Hyatt Seoul - $181 full rate.
1 Night  - Park Hyatt Busan - $97 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
3 Nights - Park Hyatt Taipei - $118 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
3 Nights - Manila City of Dreams - Free, entirely on points.
2 Nights - Singapore Grand Hyatt - $143.46 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Kuala Lumpur Grand Hyatt - $94.16 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
4 Nights - Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort - $50 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
3 Nights - Ho Chi Min Park Hyatt - $100 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Osaka Hyatt Regency - Free, entirely on points.
2 Nights - Fukuoka Hyatt Regency - $110 average per night (1 full rate, one discounted points+cash rate).
2 Nights - Hyatt Regency Tokyo - Free, entirely on points.
2 Nights - Hyatt Place Memphis - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night   - Nashville Hyatt Place - $177.65 full rate.
2 Nights - Hyatt Centric NOLA - $157.44 full rate.
1 Night - Hyatt House Dallas - $56 + points (discounted points+cash rate).
1 Night - Hyatt Place Santa Fe - Free, entirely on points
1 Night - Tamaya Resort Hyatt Regency, New Mexico - Free, entirely on points
1 Night - Hyatt Pinon Point, Sedona, Arizon - $226.45 full rate.
1 Night - Luxor, Las Vegas (MGM and Hyatt are partners) - $106.47 full rate


3. Chase Points.  The year prior to the Sabbatical, I'd been watching credit card incentive offers to try to find a travel card that would be a good main card to use for most of our Sabbatical spending.  When Chase released the Sapphire Reserve Card, it was the most successful incentive credit card release in the history of the field.  The benefits were beyond anything I'd ever seen before and I joined as soon as I could.  After spending some initial amount on the card, I received 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points, plus I was earning points on every purchase we made with the card.  Chase Ultimate reward points are redeemable for flights (which I did a few times) as well as car rental (also took advantage) and hotel reservations.  All told, we enjoyed 14 nights of free lodging thanks to the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card and Chase Ultimate Reward Points.

2 Nights - San Sebastien Legazpi Doce - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night  -  Eurostars Palermo, Sicily - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night  -  NH Catania, Sicily - Free, entirely on points.
5 Nights - Maritim Antonine, Malta - Free, entirely on points.
2 Nights - Hotel Alexandra, Copenhagen - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night  -  Baymont Inn & Suites Amarillo, TX - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night  -  The Big Chile Inn, Las Cruces, NM - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night  -  Wyndham Green Valley Canoa Ranch Resort - Free, entirely on points.

4. Starwood Points.  I have a Starwood Amex for my business as well.  I use it to stay at Starwood properties for business travel when Hyatts aren't available.  I had a few points left from the sign-up bonus, plus some others built up from travel and partnerships Starwood has with folks like Delta and Hertz before we left.  So, when our travels put us in locations where it made sense to use the points and/or pay for Starwood properties to earn points and maintain status, we did so.  Overall, the Starwood card and rewards program provided a huge value of 18 nights at the bargain average price of $29.51 per night.


1 Night   - Bogota Starwood Airport Aloft - Free, entirely on points.
2 Nights - Bogota 4 Points Sheraton - Free, entirely on points.
1 Night   - Medellin 4 Points Sheraton - Free, entirely on points.
3 Nights - Panama Aloft - $35 plus points (discount points+ cash rate).
2 Nights - Cordoba Sheraton, Argentina - $42.35 plus points (discount points+ cash rate).
3 Nights - Salta Sheraton, Argentina - $66.55 plus points (discount points+ cash rate).
1 Night  - Starwood 4 points Emeryville - $100
1 Night  - Starwood 4 points LAX - $100
2 Nights - Sheraton 4 Points Huntsville Airport - $32.37 average (1 free night, 1 points+ cash)
2 Nights - Starwood boutique, Dijon - $154.89 full rate.

5. The Rest -- Common Sense.  For the remainder of the lodging, we usually did cost comparison online and went with one of the cheapest options.  If we were going to be somewhere for more than 2 nights, we'd price out AirBNB vs other options.  For 2 people with an ensuite bathroom, AirBNB was hit or miss vs. budget hotels in most of the places we visited.  But, when my mother came to join us and we needed 2 rooms, or when we wanted a kitchen, AirBNB was usually a clear winner. 

Expedia was a very helpful tool -- they have a 10% points plan where you can use points earned on previous stays as payments against future stays.  They have loyalty status as well, and once you've stayed 10 stays booked through them, you get elevated support including them working with the properties to help you manage errors.  In two cases where the property and rental car company were horrible to deal with in a foreign country, Expedia gave me a credit voucher as an apology for the lack of professionalism on the part of the 3rd party business.  Interestingly, I found that the Expedia pricing was usually (but not always) best when going through the US-based Expedia site and not the localized in-country version of Expedia.

On the road trip in rural Argentina, we often weren't able to reserve in advance and just showed up and negotiated for rooms on the spot.  The average price of those rooms tended to be below $40/night, but this value did come with a little bit of concern regarding what we would do if they didn't have any availability in the town where we'd planned to stay (since the next town was likely very far away).  I got the sense from the backpackers we spoke with in almost every destination we visited that if you are willing to take the risk that a room may not be available and invest the time to negotiate in person, you could get your nightly pricing much lower than ours was, as we typically paid the requested rate for private rooms with a bathroom and the comfort of knowing we had a reservation before we showed up.

Unpacking

When we bought our house (let's just round up and say 15 years ago), the carpets were pretty gross.  The prior owners had young boys and they'd done what young boys do.  E and I did a number on them over the years as well, and then, when my brother was living with us, he drove his wheelchair outside and then inside, bringing the outside in on his wheels every day.

So, before we moved back in, we figured we'd take the opportunity to replace the carpets since the house would be empty and none of the furniture would be in the carpeted rooms.  We moved everything to the house from storage, but the earliest the carpet installers can come is the end of the month.

This means, we are in a very slow mode of unpacking.  We found everything labeled for the kitchen and it is mostly all in its place (but, oddly, we still haven't found the silverware, so we're using disposable cutlery).  Everything else stays mainly in boxes and in the living room.

Note the walking path through the stuff on the tile...

It's so much stuff.

After a year of the same 7 days worth of clothes and very little else, it's shocking to realize just how much *stuff* we have when we live our lives based from home.  I have a medium sized moving box full of fabric bags (race bags, beach bags, gift bags, wine bags, etc.) that we primarily used as packing material.  I'll be taking it, along with another box full of T-shirts that we also used as packing material, and several other random things to Good Will. 

The reality is, we don't need most of what we have.  We did a bunch of purging as we packed up, and as we slowly unpack, we're doing more each day.

I've always had a compulsion to minimize my belongings.  But now, opening boxes to see a huge collection of stuff I haven't used or needed in a year, such as photos, shoes, or jewelry, actually weighs me down.  I left thinking I'd scan the photos when I got back.  Now, I'm seriously considering going through them once, limiting myself to 100 or so that I'll keep, and pitching the rest. 

Interestingly, because we'd remodeled the kitchen recently, very little in the kitchen feels like a burden.  The kitchen is probably the room in the house where I own the most physical objects (other than books) and yet, it feels like I will use almost each and every object that I unpacked in the next year.  For the most part I welcomed the unpacking of the kitchen -- I'd missed it!  I did find a set of bowls and a spice jar I added to the Good Will pile, but I also found a gorgeous wedding gift of a fancy Laguoile cheese knife set complete with gift card that neither of us remembered ever seeing before (11+ years ago -- I wonder if we sent a thank you?), so I think it evens out to zero.

It's not just the physical stuff I'm unpacking, of course.  I returned home to many tasks that I'd put off over the year.  Taxes, financial planning/management, administrative stuff for my law practice, a couple of family dramas that really need some focused attention, plus just general life management stuff -- they all have to be dealt with and addressed.  Preferably ASAP.  It feels like I'm reluctantly pulling a bunch of my life out of a dark corner where I hid it all year.  Most of it is stuff I'm not happy to see.  I loved the illusion that I didn't have it to deal with it that I was able to maintain.  Perhaps some of it is possible to outsource or ignore more than I have traditionally.  I will likely spend some time investigating that.

And then, of course, there are the habits.  I've completely forgotten how much work consumes me and distracts me.  How when I'm fully consumed by work, I have to keep lists for everything or it won't get done.  How I need to plan my day the night before so I can do all non-emergent detail management before bed. I'm slowly returning to the processes that keep me sane and on track when I'm working.  Again, perhaps I won't return to all of them, but many of them are actually necessary when I'm working, and I'm starting to realize that I was only able to shed them because I wasn't working.

And finally, there are the people.  If it's possible, I became even more of a true introvert this year.  This year confirmed that E is my favorite person and I love spending time talking (and not talking) with him.  My other close friends and family with whom I've reconnected since our return are the same -- I enjoy our long discussions and I feel safe if I need to be quiet. 

Socially interacting with groups of people I actually know and have relationships with is exhausting in a way I'd forgotten.  The second night in our home we attended a wedding and it was so great to see so many people we hadn't seen in so long.   But it was also so demanding.  Strangers with a foreign language?  I can talk to them with joy and exuberance -- fueled by the fun of learning more language.  Strangers who know my friends?  There's so much to think about and process and worry about when meeting and speaking with them -- I don't want to say the wrong thing or offend.  My close friends know that I often say things in a way that others wouldn't say them.  They know that harsh words from me may not actually be intended as harsh -- it may just be how my weird way of thinking works.  In a foreign language, these mistakes are forgiven as *language* errors.  But in English, at home, with acquaintances, they are nothing except impolite, insensitive, or awkward, so I have to work *really* hard to avoid them.

In a way, I'm glad we're stuck in this pseudo-unpacked physical state for a month.  It's giving me time and physical space to be thoughtful about how my old life was and how I'd like my new life to be after the lessons learned on the road.

The Missile/Dam/National Park Tour Home -- and the road forward

We hit all the big missile related sites in the Southwest on our route home.

Los Alamos Bradley Science Museum.

V-2 Rocket, restored, White Sands Missile Museum

The White Sands Missile Museum.

The outdoor rocket field at White Sands Missile Museum.

The Titan Missile Museum

Giant Titan Rocket (never feuled, no warhead) 

inside the Titan Missile Silo at

the Museum.

Launch control for the Titan Missile Silo.

We also visited the Biosphere and Hoover Dam, which neither of us had seen before.  We took a 2 hour very educational Biosphere tour, but unfortunately, the damn tours were not being offered on the day we arrived.  So we did a self-tour in the 109F heat, and got back into the air-conditioned car for our drive to Vegas.

The ocean inside Biosphere 2.

I used to love Vegas, but now it doesn't really do much for me.  We had a nice quick visit with a delicious greek seafood dinner at Estiatorio Milos, followed by an hour or so of craps play by me, a good night's sleep, a quick run in the gym, and the long drive to Lee Vining, California.

The scale of the dam is hard to comprehend -- it's HUGE!

The next day, we used our National Park pass for the 5th time at the East entrance to Yosemite, finally getting over the purchase price in entrance fees for a net saving of $30.  It's valid through August 2017, but we doubt we'll have the chance to hit up another U.S. National Park next month.

Smoky view of half dome from Columbia Rock

For our last night of the sabbatical, we splurged and stayed at the Ahwahnee Hotel.  I'd always wanted to stay here ever since I was a little kid, and despite all of our visits to the park, I'd never done so.   After checking in to the hotel, we braved the smoke from the Mariposa fires and hiked the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail to Columbia Rock and further to the first view of the falls.  Despite the cool temps (the smoke limited the heat from the sun), and breeze, it was a solid 3 mile round-trip hike with 1,000 ft plus of elevation gain starting around 4,000 feet.

The dining room at the Ahwahnee.

From Yosemite, we drove to the storage unit, picked up the aerobed and a few other items, and drove home to unlock the door for the first time in over a year and start our re-assimilation back to our home-based life.

Lower Yosemite Falls -- gushing due to this year's snowpack.

After a Saturday of chores, we attended a lovely wedding, and then slept in Santa Cruz so that I could run Wharf to Wharf with E2.  It's a bigger race than I realized, with a sold out registration of 16,000, of which, several thousand registrations are limited to locals.  E2 got into the local lottery registration, so she encouraged me to try the general registration lottery and I got in too.

Smoky view of Yosemite Valley from the Upper Yosemite Falls trail.

My "training" consisted of intermittent running and hiking whenever I could fit it in the last several months.  I had a (slow) baseline from my Peachtree Road Race, and I'd tried to fit in slow aerobic efforts mixed with some speedwork as we drove westward.  Thankfully, the day of the race was blissfully overcast with a starting temperature of 57F.  As expected E2 was more fit than me, but she needed a couple of portapotty stops that helped me recover.  I did need to ask for one walk break after the top of the last major hill, but overall, I was pleased with how it went -- final Garmin data claimed 6.09 miles at 11:36 avg pace including all of the stops.  When running, we averaged 11:21 minutes per mile, with the last 1.1 miles averaging 10:47.

Oh look! Stop and Go traffic on 880 North at 3 PM.  Yup, we're back.

I've registered for the Rock 'n Roll San Jose 10K on October 8th as a goal race to actually regain some of the year's lost running fitness and complete a 10K at a (hopefully) decent pace, followed by the Kaiser Permanente SF Half on February 4th, as the goal race to return me to half marathon shape.

The final road trip was great, but it's very nice to be home, putting our home-based life back together, including scheduling local races and (at some point) a training plan with local runs.

U.S. Southern Route West, Part 1

I drive outside of North America, E drives in North America -- this sabbatical year, I made out like a bandit.

We've got a bit of a schedule to keep on our drive back to California.  Technically, the sabbatical year is up today, and we are now on borrowed time.

Unlike the lovely 9 week trip we made from California north to Canada and then east, below the great lakes, back up over Niagra falls and through Quebec to Maine and down to Atlanta, we're pushing the mileage and minimizing the site-seeing on our trip back.

So many wrought iron fences in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

E drove from Atlanta to New Orleans in one 6 hour plus day.  We arrived to heat and humidity and a culture that was so uniquely its own that it floored me.  If most of our American travels are about realizing how much major US cities are all starting to evolve to be more like each other, arrival in New Orleans was the opposite.  This place is *very* much its own, with very strong French, Spanish, and Caribbean influences. 

Also, the food.

5 PM beignet snack before a hot sauce tasting

at Pepper Palace (YIKES!)

and a 2 hour walking tour

followed by a delicious dinner.

Oh. My. God.

We only ate a few meals in New Orleans, but I could not believe the deliciousness of every single bite that passed my lips.  These people have combined and savored everything from all of their immigrants and made a cuisine unlike any I've ever had.  So many different layers of flavor.

We took the Creole Queen down the Mississippi to the site of

the Battle of New Orleans, which they are proud to report

is how the war of 1812 was finished off, and why the USA

did not have to lose her Louisiana Purchase territory

to the Brits (or the Spanish, due to legal technicalities).

After 2 nights in New Orleans, E drove another 6+ hour day to Austin so that we could visit with friends.  Visiting Austin was bittersweet.  The C family were the folks we had our most frequent social interactions with when they lived in our town.  They moved while we were traveling, and coming back home to miss them is going to suck.  Thankfully, they have a very comfortable guest suite that we plan to take frequent advantage of.

Austin still feels foreign to me, but after several visits in the last few years, it's starting to feel more and more comfortable.  For example, I thought I didn't like Tex-Mex, but actually I just hadn't had good Tex-Mex before Austin.  Similarly, I thought Texas BBQ brisket was fine, but the best offerings in Austin convinced me that it's one of the most impressive ways to cook beef, period.

Welcome to Texas, indeed!  Driving across the border from Louisiana.

I started running regularly in Austin after a couple days of recovery post Peachtree.  It was ridiculously humid, but after Atlanta and New Orleans, 70% humidity didn't seem too bad.  I kept the running up on our road trip after we left, and I pulled a 7-day 25 mile running streak (took day 8, today, off) for the first time in a long time, with most of the miles being slow (often run-walking), in heat and humidity.

Oh, Texas...

After a few fun days with the Cs, we pushed westward with one-night stays and days of driving with only the occasional stop for missile-related site-seeing.  Each day we got closer and closer to home, and things started feeling more and more familiar.  Rural Northern Californians, and particularly my Dad's and Mom's extended families and college friends have so much in common with the average person we encountered in Western Texas and New Mexico.  Every day of westward travel, as the landscape and air became drier and drier, and the accent moved more towards that of my grandparents, I could feel our cultural approach to my homeland in my bones.

Last night's accommodations at the Big Chile Inn, Las Cruces, NM.

After a full year of travel, we are coming home, visibly, palpably, a little each day.  And for the first time in my life, I'm completely devoid of wanderlust.  I can't wait to live a bay area home-bound life!

First Race in 13 Months

Running took a back seat to friends and family as well as travel and foreign language, culture, and food during the sabbatical year.

Huge Peachtree Road Race expo at the Georgia World Congress

I am totally okay with this.  We've been very active, walking for most of our sightseeing, and most weeks, I've fit in several hours of decent cardio (usually hiking with some running wherever I could make it happen).  Also, hefting our packs everywhere coupled with lots of elevation change in our hiking as well as gym workouts (both hotel and outdoor) means that my general functional strength is much better than it was before the year began, even if my running fitness isn't.  Although my weight has fluctuated a few pounds here and there whenever I've found a scale, right now, I weigh a pound or two *less* than I did before we started the year, and I feel like I have more muscle, particularly in my upper legs and arms.

Before we left the bay area, my last real race was the See Jane Run Half.  Since then, I've only strung together more than 5 miles of true running effort on a handful of occasions.  So, I was understandably a bit apprehensive about running my 3rd Peachtree Road Race.

We were in corral G, so we got to watch the final meters

of the Women's Elite field finish before we started.

I'd run this race twice before.  The first time, in 2011 (almost 6 weeks after a 4h13 Coeur D'alene Marathon (avg 9:40/mile) I ran it to pace my father-in-law and a pregnant friend on a very hot and humid day -- we finished in 1h07 and I remember it being *much* more difficult than 10:54 miles should have been at that level of fitness.  In 2014, one month after a 2h15 half marathon (10:15 avg), on a relatively mild 4th of July in Atlanta (by this race's standards) I ran it in 1h03 to average 10:10 miles, and it was also *very* difficult.  In other words, it appears that this course and weather are not designed to BT's advantage.

I'd gone out for a few runs in ATL the week and a half before the race, so even before the red alert I knew that it was going to be rough for me (I'm very heat and humidity sensitive).  When our corral started at 8:05 AM, it was about 74F with 95% humidity, and both the temp and the humidity just kept climbing.  Just standing around waiting for the start caused me to break a sweat...

My 70+ FIL is *very* fit and finished 7 minutes ahead of me.

The start was the usual festive 4th of July occasion, with red-white-and-blue stars and stripes everywhere and on everyone.  My father in law wanted to try to make up the slow downs from the crowding in the first half mile, and by the time we hit the first water station, it was clear to me that I could not keep up with his planned pace.  So, I told them to go on without me and walked briefly, and then started my plan of run-walking heat management (walk up hills if high effort, walk slowly through water sprinklers & water stations to dump cups on my head, walk in the shade if a patch presents itself between long exposed areas, etc.)

3/4 of mile walk from where we parked to our corral,

then 0.4 miles of easy intermittent walking to the actual start,

and 1 mile from the finish to our other car.

I finished the course with 6.3 miles on my garmin at an average pace of 12:30 (1h18 chip).  Given the heat, my lack of training, and my history on the course, this felt like a decent showing.  I feel good about it as a very high effort starting point for some home-based running in the fall and winter. 

Also, I observed two very interesting things.  First, I backed off due to overexertion much earlier than I historically would have (probably because 13 months of not training gave me permission to be very conservative), and I actually cooled down the overheating and was able to finish the last 1.5 miles of the race with a stronger effort and faster pace than the portion in the middle where I was struggling.   I don't think I've ever actually recovered from over-exertion and gotten comfortable enough to have a faster finish in a race before.  It was such a great feeling (the downhill didn't hurt).

Pace & Elevation vs. Distance (miles)

Second, I had remembered this as a race with lots of hills.  But the hills near my in-laws' home are much more steep (where I'd run a few miles in prep), and that, combined with all of the hiking we did this year means that right now, I don't really register a total elevation climb of less than 300 feet over 6 miles as anything remotely hilly.  The race felt flat to me, which was a big change from the 2 previous attempts where I'd done the running before the race in the flat bay area (also possibly because I took walk breaks up the hills and compared to uphill hiking, these inclines were nothing).

I am happy to be back in my home country and to be able to celebrate its birthday with such a big fun race.  I highly recommend the Peachtree Road Race to everyone.  The field is large enough that the raffle is relatively forgiving (all 5 of our group who registered as individuals got in).  This year, it was the site of both the men's and women's US 10K road championships, which made for some fun fast US running to enjoy while waiting for our start corral. 

This race is *amazingly* well run -- tons of security and volunteers, 60,000 participants, water stations are well-marked and large (but nothing besides water is on offer), the start corals go off *exactly* on time, the toilets are abundant, and the finish is in the beautiful and huge Piedmont Park where you can relax with friends and family and enjoy the ice cold water and snackboxes.

And now, I'm psyched to have time to actually build some real running into my schedule as we road trip across the US, I get to construct a 2.5 week training plan to get ready for Wharf to Wharf.  Wish me luck (E2's in fabulous shape, so I'm gonna need to up my game -- I'm starting with praying for cool weather.)

Iceland, Part 2

As I mentioned, I was unprepared for Iceland.  But, if you can get over the sticker shock, it really is a wonderfully gorgeous place.

Strokkur geyser erupting.

Malta has 520,000 people on an island that is 326 times smaller than Iceland.  And Malta didn't feel crowded.  So, with that perspective, Iceland, with a population of 331,000 is definitely very remote and bereft of people.  We never went more than an hour without seeing other cars (as opposed to some of our very rural road trip time in the northern middle of the U.S.), but we had gorgeous breathtaking views of unspoiled nature in every direction almost every moment of every day while driving (even if the views were hard to see through the rain).

Öxarárfoss waterfall in Thingvellir national park.

Like Maltese, Icelandic is an island nation language that is only spoken by very few people.  Thankfully, again, we basked in the privilege of being native speakers of the world's second language and got around in English.

I would definitely recommend Iceland as a destination for people who love road trips and large vistas of unspoiled wilderness.  It's also 100% renewable energy supported (primarily geothermal and hydroelectric), so if you are an energy infrastructure nerd, there's plenty to see and do related to that as well. 

When it's sunny, Iceland is breathtaking.

Unfortunately, while we were here, outdoor activities were much more difficult to accomplish than I expected.  Our Iceland Air in-flight entertainment informed us that Iceland is the 3rd windiest place in the world, but that humans don't live in the first 2.  The wind is no joke, my friends.  If parked in the wrong direction, it could be almost impossible to close the car door.  While driving, at times, I had to slightly angle the car tires into the wind to drive straight, which results in a very scary course change when you are passing large oncoming vehicles that block the wind.  Yesterday AM, it wasn't raining, so E and I headed out to try to go for a run.  After 0.2 miles, I asked to turn back.  The wind hurt my eyes (even behind my glasses!) and I felt like I was spending more effort to stay upright than actually running.

Cairn in the snowfields between some of the West Fjords.

Due to rain and wind, we didn't get in any great hikes in Iceland.  Just a few walks of less than a mile to and from various breathtaking natural sights (geothermal features, fjords, waterfalls, and more). 

One of the west fjords.

Finally, today, our last day here, it was sunny when we woke and I got out for my first actual run in 16 days!  2 easy miles, but on beautiful trails and in the perfect sun and air.  I ran to Laugardalslaug, the largest public pool facility in Reykjavik, so we could enjoy the local hot water culture.  E met me there and we popped around between fresh water hot-tubs at 38C, 40C, 42C, 44C, and the hot geothermal salt water pool.  It was a popular day for it (sunny and brisk at 13C), and we enjoyed the people-watching.  This was our consolation prize since we didn't get around to trying to book a visit to the Blue Lagoon 'til the day before and it was super sold out.  The only availability was for 10 PM (1 hour) for over 100USD each, which in addition to being much too expensive for our blood, was also at the time when we are typically snuggling into our beds.

Dedicated running and bike trail in Reykjavik.

We closed out the trip with a visit to the bridge between the continents (the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate meet in Iceland) and a visit to a boiling mud pot before checking in to our hotel on the old US navy base next to KEF.

Eurasia on the left, North America on the right.

Tomorrow, we get on an early flight to head back to the U.S. and we're both very excited to get back to the huge food selection that the U.S. melting pot offers, as well as the people, customs, culture and language that are our own.

Sabbatical Data, Part 1

We're getting ready to fly back to the US in a couple of days, ending our international travel for the Sabbatical year.  In all honesty we are *both* ready to go back home and live a non-nomadic lifestyle.  E's been ready pretty much all year, but I've been getting there slowly over the last few weeks, and Iceland really broke me.  Looking at the numbers makes me feel a bit better about being ready to call it -- it was an ambitious project, for sure.

Total Countries (including the US): 25

Nights that will have been spent in each country, in descending order:

USA - 149 (40.8%)
Italy - 19 (5%) -- a bit of a surprise since we were only planning to attend a weekend wedding.
Canada - 18 (5%) -- as planned.
France - 18 (5%) -- longer than expected due to re-routing Europe.
Japan - 18 (5%) -- roughly as planned.
Argentina - 16 (4%) -- roughly as planned.
Thailand - 16 (4%) -- surprisingly longer than expected, we really enjoyed it there.
Peru - 14 (4%) -- roughly as planned.
Colombia - 11 (3%) -- surprisingly longer than expected, we really enjoyed it there.
Ecuador - 11 (3%) -- longer than expected due to opting into an 8 day Galapogos cruise
Spain - 10 (3%) -- a surprise country after the European re-route.  Delightful.
Chile - 8 (2%) -- longer than expected, but a great place to finish South America.
Mexico - 8 (2%) -- a surprise visit to friends, not remotely in the plans when we set out.
Iceland - 7 (2%) -- roughly as planned, although, in hindsight, perhaps too long.
Vietnam - 6 (2%) -- roughly as planned, although a visit to rural south Vietnam to see friends was a big surprise.
Malta - 5 (1% and less, below) -- roughly as planned, after we were advised to go in Thailand.  One of the best surprise countries of the trip.
Portugal - 5  -- totally unplanned, a wonderfully enjoyable side trip.
Taiwan - 5 -- roughly as planned.
Korea - 4 -- roughly as planned, too short.
Switzerland - 3 -- roughly as planned to see friends.
Denmark - 3 -- opportunistic stop from Malta to manage airfare.  Walking and riding bikes in Copenhagen was gorgeous in the Summer.
Malaysia - 3 -- unplanned but enjoyable overland train transit between Singapore and Thailand.
Philippines - 3 -- weather did not cooperate so we moved on.  Much shorter than we'd hoped.
Panama - 3 -- roughly as planned.
Singapore - 2 -- unplanned but wonderful quick visit to see the city and visit with a friend's parents for dinner at their home.

Iceland, Part 1

A good friend sent me the Oh, you went to Iceland? Amazing link.  It sent me into hysterical laughter.  You should read it if you have friends, family, or social media acquaintances who've gone to Iceland recently, you'll probably relate.  I did.

See, I already had a love-hate relationship with Iceland by the time we got here.

View of the Blue Lagoon from the approach to KEF.

[Full disclosure, this post is going to have some serious first-world spoiled rotten whine in it, because you can't really complain (even honestly) about being able to travel to amazing places without sounding like a bit of an asshole.]

Typical gorgeous road trip view

if you are unlucky enough to be in Iceland when it's storming.

So, we were doing Europe on our standard seat-of-the-pants "dirt-bag planning" that more-or-less worked this Sabbatical year throughout South America, most of Asia (but not Japan), and all of Europe right up until Iceland.  This approach means we don't usually have lodging or rental cars more than a week in advance (sometimes booking the day before), and typically, we buy tickets for trains, planes, ferries, etc. a week before we need them (or 2 weeks if we really have our shit together, or, on the other extreme, we just buy them the day of if we're convinced we don't need to purchase in advance).  Essentially, we're cheap, lazy, and late, and we tend to take the best of the dregs of the cheapest of what's available wherever we are headed with a dedicated bathroom ('cause we're old now), which generally tends to work out fine and occasionally results in some very funny stories.

Road trip views of the ocean and shoreline in Iceland before the weather turned.

We hadn't booked our flights back to the US from Europe, but I knew that Icelandair had free stopovers for up to 7 days in Iceland, and I knew that Chase Ultimate Rewards points could book on Iceland Air, so I figured we'd just go with this option and do some time in Iceland on our route back just like so many of our friends and family who've shown us their awesome photos.  First mistake -- I waited 'til about 2 weeks before we needed to fly to Iceland and called Chase Ultimate Rewards because I couldn't figure out how to book the free stopover on points online.  Turns out, they couldn't either.  Apparently, it's a benefit that's only available for people actually paying real cash to Icelandair.  I could have called and researched and tried to solve the problem but I decided that was too much trouble, so we just booked one leg to Reykjavik on the Chase Ultimate Rewards points on Icelandair.  And then, I built in a week stay for us to enjoy Iceland (without doing any research on hotels, mind you) and booked our flight from KEF to the US on airline miles after that week.

Stereotypical $110+USD a room night, in-room sink,

but down the hall for shared toilet and shower
Iceland special.

So, now we had flights in and out of Iceland right around the Summer Solstice.  In hindsight, I probably should have guessed that a place with that much Summer sun might be a popular destination around the longest day of the year...

But, I didn't.  So when I went to start reserving hotels, my jaw dropped at the prices, and I quickly downgraded to guesthouses and hostels with shared bathrooms, which, in most cases were still some of the most expensive lodging per night we'd purchased for the entire sabbatical year (including amazing suites and glorious ocean views and what not in places off the beaten track in Asia and South America).  In fairness, we did cheat a bit and used hotel points and Chase points in big expensive cities this year, so it's not a true apples to apples comparison, but even so, I was super shocked to learn that rural Iceland is *much* more expensive than rural Japan when booked late on our seat-of-the-pants-travel-plan (like 2X for a basic room for 2 in Iceland sharing a bathroom with multiple guests vs. enjoying a very private en-suite bathroom for half the price in a rural Japanese business hotel).

Waiting for the Geyser to erupt...

You know what none of my friends or family who'd been there before told me?  Iceland is CRAZY EXPENSIVE.  Like $10 pint draft beer special expensive.  Like $25 hamburger expensive.  Like $40-$60+ per person to get in the popular hot springs expensive (and that probably doesn't include towel rental, etc.).  Like now that we've seen our options, we actually plan to go to Taco Bell (secret guilty road-trip pleasure in the US normally) and see how much we can save with a run to the border for a road-trip meal before we leave.  All of a sudden, my cousins who brought their camping gear and MREs and did a road trip in a rental car and tent-camped around the Ring Road in May even though there was still snow on the ground don't look so crazy to me.

Beautiful Icelandic horses in the wind...

Oh, did I mention the weather?  Yeah.  Turns out, Iceland is green and beautiful for a reason.  Our day of arrival was gorgeous, but we'd come from Malta so we figured this was normal and didn't take too many pictures.  Since then... well, it looks like we're here for a week of serious wind and rain and cold.  Did you know Iceland is the windiest place in the world where people actually live?  Yeah.  It's true.  Thankfully, we have rain gear and hats and wool socks and gloves from some of our other travels, because it had not occurred to me that 21 hours of sun a day in Iceland would be anything other than glorious Summer.  I mean it was almost 25C in Copenhagen when we were there!  But the high today was 8C (46F), and it rained *all* day.

The face of the Eurasian tectonic plate from the rift walkway...

Anyways, Iceland is gorgeous, but the rain, wind, and cold has cut back on our planned enjoyment of the views, the running, and the hiking.  And, unfortunately, the food in Iceland is actually pretty terrible.  There.  I said it.  I'm from California, I've been traveling the world for a year (primarily to eat good food, if I'm honest), and today, I was excited to go to a diner where I could order mozzarella sticks with iceberg lettuce and a cucumber on the side with a large soda water for lunch -- this was a *great* option by local standards (in fairness, it's actually a pretty great little kid guilty pleasure lunch, just super unhealthy).  Not to be outdone, E had one of the famous Icelandic hot dogs and jalapeno poppers along with some fries (to the restaurant's credit, they gave us the fries for free and we both enjoyed them -- the fryer had more than they needed for the lunch service and we arrived on the late side of the lunch rush).  This gastronomic experience set us back $30, which is by far the cheapest meal we've had in Iceland thus far. 

Posing, with the famous Icelandic hot dog... (just fine, not mind-altering).

Make no mistake, Iceland is *not* a culinary destination.  Which is, of course, fine.  Its landscapes are obviously the reason to come.  But it's more fine if you happen to be here when the weather is good and the free views and hikes help balance out the value of the otherwise egregiously expensive trip with bland expensive food, or, it's fine if you're prepared with MREs like my genius cousins, or at least if you're pre-prepared for the amount of money you'll be paying for something that doesn't really qualify as a proper meal in many of the places you regularly spend time (I wasn't and it's still smarting, every day, to see the totals on our bills after mediocre meals -- oh, the 4 EU full-size amazing margarita pizzas in Naples, they do that one aspect of life better than just about anyone, and it really hurts to experience how badly Iceland missed the good food value boat).