The Plan

4/14/19: Two kids and seven years later it's time for sabbatical number two! "Operation Deutschland" is in full planning mode and we can't wait to adventure with our daughters.  The Abers take Munich starting in August!

***************************************************************
We're taking a sabbatical from the rat race and checking out for the next year. There's no guarantee we'll stick to this plan, but for now here's how things are shaking out:

It's been a few months and it's time to update the plan.  Notes as of 1/24/13:

1. Quit our engineering jobs. - Check!

2. Hike the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Specifically, hike the Camino Frances. This is a walking pilgrimage that starts in France, crosses the Pyrenees and ends in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.  About 480 miles and 35 days of walking. - Check!

3. Continue the pilgrimage past Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre on the Atlantic Ocean, once thought to be the end of the earth.  - We were not able to accomplish this due to flight cancellations and the time limits of our trip.  We plan to tackle this final piece of the pilgrimage when we walk the Camino again in our retirement.

4. Come back to the homeland and enjoy the holidays with our friends and family. - And boy did we enjoy it!  We're missing everyone like crazy now.

5. Pack our belongings into a storage unit and head for Cuchara, Colorado to hibernate for the winter. - We're here!

6. While based in Colorado, we hope to make a road trip south and west to camp some national parks and visit friends and family. - So far we've been as far West as Salt Lake City, Utah and visited Arches national park and Fishlake national forest.  

7. Come summer we'll move to Kahola Lake in the Flint Hills to try our hand at semi off-the-grid living with no running water and a good old out house.  

8. Take a road trip East to visit friends and family as we make our way to Florida to visit Lauren's grandparents and reunite with fellow pilgrims from the Camino.

A few goals for our adventure:

• Survive the Camino. And hopefully after living out of a backpack for 43 days we'll be able to live with a lot less stuff once we're back in the grind. - We got rid of so much stuff during the move and tried to pack minimally for Colorado.  Still, we have more than enough and are living extremely comfortably.  There's definitely more that needs to go.
• Make as much as possible from scratch while at Cuchara and Kahola. We plan to take only staples and do all our cooking from scratch. We'll make our own soap, do laundry by hand, purify water, and hopefully rig up a solar shower at Kahola. - We're working on this.  Still making our own laundry soap and trying to master bread and cheese making at the moment.
• Enjoy the great outdoors. Become professional snowshoers and expert sunset watchers. Catch and cook lots of fish. - Snow shoeing is the sport of the moment for us here in Colorado.
• See the west. Neither of us have much experience west of the Rockies and we're itching to get a good tour in.
• Eat locally. We found a source for eggs a few miles up the road at Kahola and a pick-your-own farm 6 miles away from Kahola in Americus, KS. 
• Go in to town as infrequently as possible. - We're still getting a feel for just how long our food and supplies will last.  So far we've made one trip to town. 
• Catch up on our quantum physics reading (ok Jay might be alone on this one).