Sunday, July 31, 2005

Float, hoof, and Shank's Mare: the Big Western Adventure

We've just returned from the last trip of my two-month sabbatical, a two week rafting / riding / hiking vacation throughout Utah and Wyoming (with cameo appearances by Idaho and Montana). And tomorrow I start back at work :(.

It's been a surprisingly busy sabbatical, both from traveling and from self-driven projects. Overall, we've been on the road for 50% of June and July, so I shouldn't feel too bad that

- My office is messier than before I started sabbatical
- The house is far from immaculate
- My project list is far from complete (The garage workbench is still two feet deep in junk)
- I've completely muffed a writing deadline (ouch, chagrin, and embarrassment)

But I do!

However, I have managed to keep a travel journal for almost every day of our Big Western Adventure (BWE). Since I had neither the means nor the desire to post to this blog when I was 50 miles away from civilization in every direction - that was the point of the vacation, after all - I'm retroactively posting to it on a more-or-less daily basis as I transcribe my handwritten journal.