Home...cough...Sweet...cough...Home

Rob and I successfully made it back to the States late Friday night after another great flight on Virgin Atlantic. I actually had fun on both 10 hour flights and that's saying something given my moderate aversion to flying. The upgrade to Premium Economy was (in my opinion) totally worth it.

Our bags popped off in the first couple minutes (another perk of Premium Economy) and we took the train to the rental car stop. We made it out of SFO at about 3pm and arrived in Folsom a little more than four hours later thanks to a stop at In-n-Out and rush hour traffic.

The In-n-Out was fantastic. I didn't miss burgers while in Europe (especially since we ate at McDonald's a couple times in Italy -- don't chastise us for that, btw...it was the only place open until 4am), but once I bit into that sweet double-double I wondered why I hadn't.

After picking up Rob's car and dropping off the rental we met up with Mike, Mark, Mika, and Aiden for a couple drinks and some conversation. It was great to be hanging out with "our peeps" in Folsom.

I woke up early Saturday feeling much more awake than expected. The sore throat that I had had since the day in the Schottenhamel tent was fading...things seemed great! I wasn't exactly productive, but we did manage to make it out to watch some college football games that afternoon (was that Stanford win UNREAL or what?!) and we hit the new Bistro 33 in El Dorado Hills for a late evening snack and some drinks (awesome place - go check it out if you get a chance). This is when the twinge in my throat started to perk up a bit and the congestion in my head that seemed like typical post flying pressure kicked it up a notch as well. Add those fun elements together and throw in a little jet lag and you get one cranky Kipp. Mike, Rob, Mark (and probably our waitress) will vouch for me (sorry guys).

I woke up Sunday morning to a chest and head cold in full throttle. I think America is trying to reject me. To be fair, I probably caught it in Europe, but this was not how I was hoping to spend my first few days back in the U.S. and last few days of sabbatical. I had actually hoped to get back to some regular running and working out. I was looking forward to a little cooking too... I can still do the cooking, but thanks to the cold everything tastes a little bland...unless you do what I did to my chicken soup and just dump in some chili powder. :)

In any case, we're back... I was actually planning to post on how six weeks in Europe had made me think of things a bit differently, but seeing as I've already gone on for so long, I'll save that for another post.

I really hope you all have had some fun reading the blogs. I've actually really enjoyed blogging and I think I will try to keep it up (don't worry, there's no obligation to continue reading it :)). Speaking of reading this blog, thanks to all of you who have read and commented on the posts here - it was nice to stay connected with everyone.

Cheers for now...