At the start of this sabbatical I had hoped to do a little bit of world travelling.  Nothing like a good walkabout to gain perspective on life and find greater meaning. While COVID restrictions have unfortunately, but understandably, limited global travel, the good old US of A was still open for business for a carefully planned and socially distanced getaway.  So I packed my bag, got on a plane to San Francisco, and rented a car to embark on a 2,000 km one man road-trip around California to see what I could see.  Safely.

I should also note that I decided to make it a full “left”-coast liberal experience, as I had the Obama audio book downloaded to serve as the soundtrack to the journey.

The week-long agenda was designed to cover a lot of ground and knock off several bucket list items.  I think it was also subconsciously a prospecting trip to scout out potential retirement locations for down the road…

Day 1: San Francisco

  • First stop, a quick visit to Stanford University in Palo Alto. Great campus.  I might have been a bit presumptuous to have tried to book my daughter a room in residence for 2026…
  • Alcatraz island prison tour was kind of cool.  Would have been more cool with real prisoners.

Day 2: Napa

  • Crisp but sunny weather and bright red leaves on the vines provided a stunning backdrop for this idyllic leg of the journey to St. Helena.
  • Stopped at Joseph Phelps’ scenic property for a small tasting of several of their wines that I can’t afford by the bottle.  And popped into The Prisoner Wine Company for a tasting of their unconventional reds, some of which have been my favorites this past summer to take the edge off the pandemic.

Day 3: Yosemite Park

  • Living in the Rockies you tend to take spectacular mountain views for granted.  However, driving though the Sierra-Nevada mountain range down into the Yosemite valley was breathtaking.
  • Thought about attempting the second ever free-solo ascent of El Capitan after watching the movie (that guy is nuts!).  Settled for a nice long hike up a well-traveled trail towards Half-Dome mountain amongst waterfalls and giant sequoia trees instead…

Day 4: Carmel

  • Back to the coast for a round of golf at Spyglass Hill at the Pebble Beach Resort.  Didn’t slice any drives into the ocean, but I wouldn’t say my game is in top form since our course closed for the season at the end of Sept.
  • Then into the car for a drive along the Pacific Coast Highway past Big Sur and down to Pisco Beach and San Luis Obispo for a spectacular sunset then dinner (btw, at this point I was no longer embarrassed asking for “a table for one please”)

Day 5: LA

  • Admittedly I originally had bigger plans for LA, but as the day got closer, L.A. became the hotspot in California for COVID so much was shut down. 
  • Settled for visiting a few outdoors sights.  First a quick visit to Venice Beach.  I thought it would be scenic but edgy, more “real” than Santa Monica.  Turns out its too real.  I was scared to get out of my rental car.
  • So I headed up to the Hollywood hills where I was more likely to find the beautiful people.  Hiked up to the sign, just to say I did, then headed on out of town into the desert.

Day 6/7: Palm Springs

  • Unfortunately the big event that I had planned for Day 6 was cancelled at the last minute… you guessed it, due to new Covid restrictions.  Was scheduled for a session at the BMW Performance Center test driving their new cars around the track.  Had to settle for driving my rented VW Passat at moderate speeds to Joshua Tree National Park instead.  I thought on a hot sunny hike in the desert through traditional native lands I might find my spirit animal and have great revelations of self.  Just found Joshua trees.
  • Finished the trip in Palm Springs with another round of golf and a bit of time relaxing by the pool before my flight home.

Back in Calgary now and have cleared quarantine after my airport COVID test has come back negative. That was a lot of Jonny Gould time. But all well worth it. Not quite what it could have been given the current situation, but I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to safely get out and experience another little corner of the world beyond my usual horizons.

Time to turn my attention to Christmas (whatever that looks like this year) and then back to work in a month…