After every 7 years, employees of Intel Corporation get an extra 8 weeks of paid vacation in addition to normal yearly vacation time. Intel calls it 'sabbatical'. I called it 'wonderful'! My sabbatical began on May 25, 1996, and I returned to work on August 5, 1996. I took two weeks of vacation on top of sabbatical for a total of 10 weeks off.
Click on the links below for a summary of each week's activities:
On 5/25/96 I flew from Sacramento to Las Vegas. No, I didn't do any gambling. I drove straight to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately a late season snow blizzard dashed my hopes of a rim-to-river hike. However, I did spend two wonderful days each at Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. Summary of the week: lots of hiking and lots of sunrise/sunset photography!
On 5/31/96 I flew a long series of segments: Sacramento-to-San Francisco, San Francisco-to-New York City, New York City-to-Amsterdam, Amsterdam-to-Kilimanjaro (Tanzania, Africa). I was on a tour with Overseas Adventure Travel (an excellent adventure travel company; I highly recommend them! 800-221-0533). Itinerary for week 2 was as follows:
I'm happy to report that all 5 of us made it to not only the crater rim (Gilman's Point) but to the true summit (Uhura Point), at 19, 340 feet (5895 meters). We climbed and descended via the Marangu route.
My wife joined me for a week of African safari, again with Overseas Adventure Travel. We saw an incredible variety of wildlife...pretty much anything and everything that could conceivably be found in the area. We visited the following sites:
'Damage' toll at the end of this week; ~30 rolls of film exposed (that's over 1,000 pictures taken!). For this I have an abundance of camera equipment to thank, plus an auto winder and my wife's itchy shutter finger (ok, I admit, I shot a few pictures too)! On the other hand, when's the next time we're going to be in Africa?
We flew from Kilimanjaro back to Amsterdam, and immediately jumped on a train for Switzerland. We spent a few days each in Zurich and in Pontresena (near St. Moritz, in the Alps near Italy). Again, lots of hiking, and I had a fondue dinner for the first time (and what a place to have it!). Took the 'Glacier Train' through the Alps to the Matterhorn, but the views were limited by bad weather/clouds. Note for travelers: significant portions of the 'Glacier Train' are run by private train companies and are NOT covered by Eurorail passes (and they don't tell you this when you make your reservations!). Next, we took the train to Geneva for the day, then jumped on an overnight train to Spain.
Once in Barcelona, we took another train to a WONDERFUL hostel in the town of Piles, on the 'Costa Blanca', where we spent three days soaking up the sun, splashing in the waves and stuffing our stomachs with paella, tapas, sangria and cervesas! We then took ANOTHER train (you can see we got the most out of our Eurorail passes) back to Barcelona, rented a car and headed to the Pyrenees for two days (no we didn't see a bullfight), including a visit to Monserrat (no we didn't see a vision of the Virgin Mary). Back to Barcelona for a night-and-a-day including visits to the Gaudi-designed cathedral and park (great city, have to go back someday!) and then took an overnight train to Paris, where we wandered the 'city of love' for a day (since this trip was our delayed honeymoon!). Another night train to Amsterdam, then goodbye Europe!
We spent three days in New York City, wandering through Central Park, visiting the New York Stock Exchange (what a couple of yuppies!) and generally going 'wow' at really tall buildings. Unfortunately our plans to see 'Rent' on Broadway didn't pan out. Next, we flew to Washington D.C. for a few days. Pretty cool place to be on the 4th of July! Did the walking tour of the monuments and notable government buildings, checked out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (great dinosaurs!) and saw an outstanding fireworks display. Back to New York City for our flight home via Los Angeles. Note: at this point, I have been in Sacramento for a grand total of 2 days out of 42 total. Aside from missing our dogs, I'm not homesick at ALL!
Spent half the week getting reaquainted with our furry and finned children and digging through the mountain of mail. Then, down to San Francisco for an evening and back on a plane! This time to Spokane, Washington. Spent the first night at a hostel in Naples, Idaho. Highlights included a speeding ticket (gee, guess I'm not in Montana yet). Next morning we crossed over into Montana (home of the unlimited daylight speed limit, unfortunately our rental car was not a Ferrari but a Toyota Corolla). Spent three days at Glacier National Park. Guess what we did? You got it, lots of hiking and sunrise/sunset photographs. Highly recommended: Brownie's hostel in East Glacier, and the restaurant right next door!
Crossed the border into Canada. We spent a day at Waterton National Park, and several days each at Banff, Jasper and Mt. Robson parks. I bet you can guess what we spent our time doing.....Lodging recommendations: Castle Mountain hostel (Banff), Whistler's Mountain hostel (Jasper) and, for a little mid-week pampering, Sunwapta Falls Bungalows and Miette Hot Springs. Book-of-the-sabbatical (aside from the Hostelling International guides): 'Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies' (authors: Kathy and Craig Copeland). We did three hikes listed as 'Premier' and one listed as 'Outstanding', and the reviews were right on! Critters of particular merit: the grizzly bears I saw at Waterton (honey, the sign doesn't say 'going beyond this point is prohibited', it just says 'going beyond this point is not recommended'), the three groups of bighorn sheep on the Wilcox Pass hike, and the elk-a-plenty surrounding Jasper. We day-hiked for seven days straight, and my wife learned that with a slow-and-steady pace she too could be a stud-ette! (and after Kilimanjaro, I learned about patience with a slow-and-steady pace!). Back to Spokane in time to catch the opening ceremony of the 96 Summer Olympics on TV, then home to Sacramento.
This was the week I made up for abandoning my wife in Weeks 1 and 2. She had to work, so I tackled the honey-do list at home. Let's see....fixed the waterbed, re-bricked portions of the hot tub, tracked down a replacement hot tub cover (thanks to the combined weight of several dogs, the original one collapsed), fixed a ceiling fan, cleaned house, cooked meals.....OK, so I took a few naps, downloaded some games off the Internet, shopped for cars, sorted pictures and slides, ran with the dogs in the mornings, read books and watched lots of Olympic coverage and Star Trek reruns too......Welcome back to Sacramento, home of the 110 degree summer (but it's a DRY heat)!
Sorry, no pix this week!
The last fling before I return to the grind (I mean my wonderful job at Intel). After suffering through several days of severe depression and pouring over spreadsheets to figure out if there was some way that I could stretch out my savings and stay on vacation forever (I put this in for you, Bruce McC), I resolved to end sabbatical with a bang!
The week started out right as I traded in my 1988 Chrysler Conquest for a new 'toy', a 1995 Eagle Talon TSi AWD. I also went to a great concert: a reunion for ex-Grateful Dead member side bands and other groups called the Further Festival. 7 hours of outstanding music, fun people, good vibes and cold beer! Plus hanging out for a few hours beforehand at the carnival in the parking lot...Wednesday morning I headed for the Trinity Alps, along with faithful companion Kenai (on his first road trip). We did an 18-mile two-day backpacking trip, made it as far north as Redwoods National Park, and headed home via highway 101 (which for those of you who don't know is an INCREDIBLE curvey drive along the Pacific Coast) and the Avenue of the Giant Redwoods. Back home and unpacked just in time to polish off this web page and get ready for work Monday morning!
Sorry, no pix this week either!
It was an outstanding sabbatical. Although some people thought I was crazy for spending so much time away from home, in retrospect I wouldn't have done it any other way. We saw lots of places we'd wanted to visit for a long time, we sharpened our photographic skills, and we spent quality time together away from the hustle-and-bustle of daily life. Thanks go to Alan Fong for his great dog-sitting while we were away, to my wife for putting up with me :-), and of course to the Creator God for keeping us safe, happy and healthy the whole time.
URL For This Page: http://www.bdipert.com/sabbat.htm.
This page was created on August 4, 1996. It was last updated on August 10, 2009.