Summer 2023: Colorado, Montana, and Cape Cod
I've been remiss in writing about my month-long summer vacation. Mostly because life moves pretty fast with Jack heading off to college, things getting busy at work, and lots of wonderful weekends along the way. I'm finally looking around and sitting down to write this post at the end of October. Now is better than never!
This year, I took a month off from mid-June to mid-August. How did I take so much time off? Okta has a magnificent unlimited vacation policy.
In 24 hours, I'll be starting my summer vacation. @okta has an unlimited vacation policy, and I'm taking full advantage with a month off! 😃
— Matt Raible (@mraible) July 13, 2023
What will I do?
⛳️ Golf, raft, and bike
🛶 Live down by the river in a van
⛰️ Shoot the breeze in Montana
🌊 Tour Cape Cod#LifeAtOkta
The adventure started with a birthday golf tournament that Saturday to celebrate my 49th.
We had a nice family dinner at Sushi Den on Sunday.
For the two weeks after that, I went on bike rides and worked on a 10-year anniversary present for Trish: a book about our wedding and honeymoon. I wrote about these events in previous blog posts.
- Matrimony in Montana
- Around The World Honeymoon: 1st Stop, Ireland
- Around The World Honeymoon: 2nd Stop, Italy
- Around The World Honeymoon: 3rd Stop, Thailand
- Around The World Honeymoon: Last Stop, Fiji
Because of these posts and pictures, writing the text wasn't difficult, but finding high-res images was. In the end, I succeeded by getting Trish's credentials to her website and finding the photos in her archives.
I wrote the book using Blurb and you can buy a hardcover version of The Good Life, Volume II. I'm proud to say I finished the rough draft just hours before she arrived home from a trip the evening before our anniversary.
The weekend before our anniversary, I went on a father-son rafting trip with Jack and friends.
We made it home in time to show Hefe at the Colorado Bug-In at Bandimere on July 23rd. We ended up winning runner-up in our class! There were lots of magnificent VWs at this event, so I encourage you to checkout my summer vacation album.
We celebrated our anniversary by rafting on the Upper Colorado River with the Pirates of the Pumphouse.
I visited Montana the next week and had fun with my fabulous family and their wonderful homestead.
Our last adventure was to Cape Cod to spend a week with Trish's family. We marveled at the sunsets, went on many boat rides, and appreciated each other's company.
These photos are just a sampling of the 100+ that I polished and published. I think photos are a great way to tell a story, so I added captions to all of them in my Summer 2023 Album.