Happy 2020!
Happy New Year!
We hope this letter finds you well and that you are enjoying the year-end in all the ways meaningful to you! :)
In May, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. It has been fun to look back over the past 20 years and see how far we have come. We have been especially blessed to have incredible people in our lives - like you!
One of our best memories of Paul’s time at Intel was how much fun we had on our sabbaticals. We love to travel together, and we decided that our gift to each other would be a series of trips over the course of the year. It was a great chance to see new places and make new memories together.
Our first trip was to Joshua Tree and Death Valley with Susan Jane’s parents. This trip was carefully timed for late March so that we would have mild weather and that worked out great. Hiking in desert is quite a bit different than hiking in the Pacific Northwest and we saw all sorts of different plants and animals. We didn’t see a “super bloom” but there were some great wildflowers in Joshua Tree.
We combined our annual garden party with our anniversary party and had a great time with all the friends who turned out to celebrate with us (including from John Day, Oregon and Haifa, Israel)! After the garden party, we went out to John Day and celebrated some more. Then we headed up to the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area in Northeastern Oregon and spent a weekend at a lodge up there. It was a whole month of celebration!
In July, we returned to Africa for the first time since 2011 (our last sabbatical). We visited 6 national parks between Kenya and Tanzania and saw all of our favorite animals (and a few new ones). Central Africa is already starting to feel real impacts from climate change and we saw many changes since our last visit.
In August, we again did the Bridge Pedal (an annual ritual at this point) and managed to squeeze a few days camping in before the Labor Day crowds got there. We camped (for the first time) on the Gifford Pinchot, the forest SJ first worked on after Law School. Even the dogs enjoyed the time away from the daily routine.
Our final trip of the year was a two-fer. First, we spent the week of Thanksgiving in Bali with 6 other friends. This was the first time we’ve done anything like this and it was really fun to have the time to really connect with each person without being rushed. There are not many opportunities to put work away and live with friends, but we got to do that in Bali. The week ended with a great Balinese dinner on Thanksgiving - a memory we will treasure!
At the end of that week, we then said goodbye to our friends and flew to Auckland, New Zealand where we spent time on both the north and south islands (and were lucky to not be near the volcanic eruption earlier this month). New Zealand has some beautiful vistas and friendly towns. Their forestry practices belie their reputation as a conservation-minded country, but every country has to learn at their own pace.
The dogs are doing well, enjoying the change of scenery between Portland and John Day and continuing to terrorize the mailman. Most days they make us laugh and with no health complaints, they’re very low maintenance. It’s nice to have someone looking out for any irregular noise or smell... most of the time. :)
We are also mindful of climate change in our travels. We do purchase carbon credits, but more could be done (including not traveling). Many places we traveled this year are already showing impacts of climate change, especially sub-saharan Africa. However, we also traveled through Nairobi and Dubai for the first time this year and it is clear that our climate-impact as a species will require much more significant action than us stopping our travel. So for now, our intention is to continue to travel and report back on what we find.
We are also grateful for our friends, employers and all of our coworkers - it is an incredible gift to be able to celebrate our anniversary in this way and it is only possible thanks to the support we enjoyed from many people in our lives. Thank you!
Well that’s about it for this year. We love hearing from you, so please drop us a line and let us know how you’re doing. We wish all the best for you in 2020. Looks like it’s going to be quite a ride!
Love,
Susan Jane and Paul