In July 2002 Beth and I took off for 11 days and drove up the entire California coastline.  We started in San Diego, visited a friend in Temecula and then started up the coast on Highway 1.  We skipped over LA and made stops at random hotels in Santa Barbara, Carmel/Monterey, Palo Alto, and spent 2 days in San Francisco & Berkeley.  On day six we ran out of hotel money, so we bought camping gear at Target and continued on.  Before camping we hit a few vineyards between Napa and St. Helena and discovered our new favorite wines: a Cabernet from Silverado Vineyards, and a S. Anderson white that you are supposed to drink warm (it looks like S. Anderson is now owned by Cleff Lede).  Then we made a b-line back to the coast, and spent our first night camping at a random camp site up in the mountains.  The next day we hiked and camped in Sequoia National Park, and the day after that we did the same in the Redwood National Forest (it happened to be bikers week in Redwood National Forest, so all of the small towns were filled with folks wearing leather and bandannas – who knew?).  Our flight back to Virginia was out of San Diego airport, so on day 9 we started back down the coast – this time on the main highways.  We made it all the way from the Redwoods down to Malibu in one day and spent the night camping right off the beach in Malibu… we could hear the ocean; it was awesome.  The next day we hit the beach and ate our first ever Fish Tacos (which has since become one of our favorite home cooked meals).  That night we drove back to San Diego.  We attempted to hit a camp site there but it was full of homeless people, so we got a hotel in Carlsbad.  We hit the beach again that morning in Carlsbad, and then finally caught our flight back home.

It was a great trip.  It was also the one and only time that I have been completely disconnected from Webmail.us since we founded the company in December 1999.  All of my other trips have been short, and I have had full access to email and cell phone, and spent at least 25% of the time working.

Well, after 4 years it is time to once again pull all of the geek stuff out of my head for a week…

Next month Beth and I are getting married (ya, I know… we’ve been together for 6.5 years now; but I’ve been busy!).  After the wedding on March 11th, we are going to Mazatlan, Mexico for 7 days, where I plan to do nothing buy sit in the sun, refresh my scuba skills, and drink a few tequila concoctions.

And tomorrow, me and the crew head to Vegas for a few days for the bachelor party.  I will still be "connected" there, although probably not in a state to do any work.

In 2002, it was a bit rough for the folks at the office while I was away.  But since then we have built a phenomenal engineering and support team that I am more than confident in…  Korey, Kirk and team, the email hosting system is all yours!