Well its over

Alas it is the end of my sabbatical. 2 months off of work. In less than 12 hours I will be returning to work. Since I returned from the road trip with Lauren we spent the majority of our time laying down the wood laminate flooring and painting. Almost done with the house. Just have to finish a few rows in the living room and then the kitchen. Besides that I went to jits a bunch and finished off with a trip to prarie city with John and Soroush and finally tonight I enjoyed a beer while watching "funny people."

So here is the sabbatical recap...

Layed lots of laminate flooring
Went dirt biking twice
Visited ireland - Jameson and Guinness factories.
Visited Spain - Madrid, Zaragosa, Barcelona. Ran with the bulls and survived.
Visited France - lots of little towns. Watched 6 stages of TDF.
Visited Andorra - yeah, Andorra. saw some TDF there
US road trip - Bryce, Zion, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Arches, Hoover Dam, Vegas, Salt Lake, Denver,Grand Canyon, Dead Horse Canyon, mountain biked Moab in the rain. New Belgium brewery tour, Coors brewery tour, stopped by Snake River and Moab breweries.
Saw the parents for a few days in sacramento and then took then to tahoe and ruths chris.

All in all I cannot complain one bit. Perhaps the best 2 months of my life in many many years. I am so grateful to have had that opportunity. I can't believe 2 montsh is over and that I have been at Intel for 7 years. What a crazy ride. Thanks to my parents for coming out and watching George, Lisa for letting Jeff go to Europe, Jeff for planning and going to Europe, Lauren for planning a great US road trip, and of course George for dealing with the home construction and me being gone.

Ok, time for me to go to bed, gotta get up early and go to work after all. Only 6 years and 9 months til the next instalment of tour de sabbatical.

Road trip time

Off on a road trip with Lauren for the next couple weeks. Check
Laurens roadtrip blog at http://laurenkeithandtheyellowcar.blogspot.com

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HOME!

Made it home. Its been a couple of days now since we have returned. Overall it was probably the trip of a lifetime. I will be posting pictures to my flickr account shortly, stay tuned!

Returning home

Leaving the airport hotel now. On the way from Dublin to the us. Can't
wait to get back home. Tonight I sleep in my own bed

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Madrid

Spent today driving to Madrid and then we went to the palace and
cathederal almudena. We also saw a pretty impressive cathedral in
Zaragoza. Ate Spanish fast food , not impressed. Hung out in the room
resting. Tonight well get some dinner and hit a pub. Tomorrow the
prado and the reina Sofia(guernica is there) and then fly to Dublin
for the night. This picture doesn't show it but jeff has a sweet sock
tan, ask Jim to see it.

Tdf done

The tdf is officially over for us. We finished off by watching the
tour malet. It was amazing. We were right on the road and literaly
lance and the pelleton road a foot away from us up one of the final
switchbacks. Besides that we met a guy who road his motorcycle from
Germany and we camped with him for a few days. Both jeff and I have
been getting killed with allergies. We decided to get a hotel tonight
on our way o Madrid. First shower and level bed to sleep on in 4
nights. Well check out the cathederal in Zaragoza and then we will hit
madrid for a few dAys. Oh yeah Lisa saw us on the versus tdf coverage
so look for us. On the climb to the summit waving us flag and gator
flag.

Col de tour Malet

The summit.