Epilogue

Well, as of July 12, Bev and I are back in Sioux Falls, back at work and we're gradually getting back to our normal routine. If we even remember what that routine was! We spent the last five weeks of sabbatical basing out of Okoboji, Iowa. During that time, we went to a wedding in St. Paul one weekend, to the South Dakota Bar Convention in Rapid City the weekend after that, and a wedding in Milwaukee the weekend after that. So our time in Okoboji didn't include a lot of time for hanging out and relaxing! Now that we're back in our home in Sioux Falls, our routine is returning. It's fun seeing our friends and co-workers again, to eat in our favorite local restaurants and, of course, to sleep in our own bed! After all the beds we slept in the last six months, including some wonderful beds, there is no bed like one's own bed!

The most often questions since we've been back have been, "What was your favorite place?" and "Wasn't it hard going back to work?" The short answers: We can't pick a favorite place, and no, it really wasn't hard going back to work.

We saw such amazing places we just can't narrow it down to one place. Our least favorite place is easy: Naples, Italy. It was dirty, and on a Sunday afternoon, we saw little redeeming value in the place. The famed museum that holds the greatest archeological finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum was under construction, was and largely closed and was a bust. But picking a favorite of all the great places, not only in Europe but in the beautiful American stops we made, is just impossible.

That said, there were pleasant surprises. I never expected to be so impressed and captivated by Dublin, Berlin, Rotterdam and Frieborg, Germany. Then there were all the hours we were able to spend with our three beautiful grandsons, Alex, Gabe and Sutton, not to mention our other family and friends we don't see often enough. That time was truly precious. The greatest gift of all of the sabbatical was the gift of TIME! Even when we are fortunate to have the money to make a trip here or there from time to time, finding the TIME to travel, to see the great sites of this beautiful country and of our world is a commodity most of us don't have. Especially while we're young enough and healthy enough to do what Bev and I did on this trip the last six months.

I'll never forget the feeling on Friday, January 15, when we drove out of Sioux Falls and headed west. I kept thinking, "I don't have to be back to work until July!" It was like the feeling I had after finishing the last final exam of any semester in law school. Only much, much better! My two favorite lines during my sabbatical: "I'm in no hurry; I don't have to be back to work until July." And the other: "I'm actually getting paid for this!" What an amazing program our sabbatical program is. What a gift to my family and to me, to have had the opportunity to take time off to re-charge. Thank you many times over to all of my great partners at my law firm of Lynn, Jackson, Shultz & Lebrun for this fabulous opportunity!

Which leads me to the second answer. It was not hard to go back to work. I firmly believe that the key to a happy life is balance. We can't work all the time. We can't play all the time. The sabbatical was a fabulous chance to get away from all the emotional, mental and physical demands of law practice. A chance to spend time with family, and with friends. A chance to play for six months. But now it's time to get my life back into balance, by adding meaningful work to the portfolio that is my life and the way I spend my time and energy.

I still like doing what I do, which is to try to steer my clients through some of the most trying problems they've faced in their lives or in their businesses. I still get so much gratification from trying to help my clients in the circumstances in which they find themselves, and I hope I can continue to be there for them for years to come.

An added bonus this year is that I have the honor of taking office on June 18 as President of the State Bar of South Dakota. This coming year will undoubtedly present challenges for me, on top of those of practicing law. But I know that the coming year will be one of the greatest years of my life. I love lawyers. I love the State Bar of South Dakota, which is one of the greatest and most successful bars in the United States. I get to visit lawyers and their local bar organizations around South Dakota. I get to try to tackle the challenges that face the State Bar of South Dakota and the legal profession. And I get to meet bar leaders from around the country who share all of these passions with me.

So not only do I return to my law practice with great law partners who I like and respect, but also to an exciting year of bar leadership. And I get to return to these things with a new energy and vigor. This would never have been possible without the wisdom and generosity of Lynn, Jackson, Shultz & Lebrun's sabbatical program, which has been providing this fabulous experience to its attorneys for thirty years.

Sunday, June 6—There's No Place Like Home!!

Today, Sunday, after breakfast, we said our goodbyes to the Ho-Ho-Holters and headed out for our last day of our road trip back home. The weather was perfect for driving—sunny but cool, as we headed East on I-70 toward Kansas City, then up through Iowa and on to Sioux Falls. We got home right at 7:00 p.m., in plenty of time to see our home and yard before the sun went down. Things looked so good, considering we'd been away from home since February 19! Jess did such a great job of house-sitting! He'll continue to stay at our house until mid-July, when my sabbatical ends. But on those few nights, like tonight and tomorrow night, when we're home, Jess stays at his parents' house. He obviously knows how much dirty laundry and “stuff” we will have to deal with while we're home. We plan to take care of some things the next couple of day, run some errands, etc., before we leave for the condo at Okoboji. We'll be basing out of there until I start back to work in July.

Because our sabbatical travels are now complete, we won't be blogging what we hope are lazy days ahead of us. We will be putting together some closing thoughts and musings about the incredible last five months, and will share those with you. Meanwhile, thanks to those who have kept in touch with us and expressed their interest and enjoyment in our blogs of this amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience we've had, thanks to the generosity of my partners at Lynn, Jackson, Shultz & Lebrun! Our blog has always been intended to keep any of our friends and family up to speed on what we've seen and done, as well as to memorialize this fabulous voyage for posterity. We plan to ultimately have our blog printed and bound into a book so that we can always look back on this uniquely wonderful time in our lives! So, until our next blog, Ciao!

Friday evening & Saturday, June 4-5—Fun Times in St. Louie!

We got into St. Louis about 6:15 last after an easy 5-hour drive from Memphis. Let me just say that after driving about 10 days in Ireland on the left side of the road, and 15 days in Italy amongst very impatient drivers, it is so easy driving here in the U.S. I almost feel like it's cheating!

When we got here, we were greeted by Denny and Cynthia, as well as 21-year-old son, Max, and their 11-year-old son, Dawson. It was so fun to see them again, after several years. The boys have both really grown since we've seen them, and it was fun to see them so “grown up.” How old does that make us sound?! Denny treated us to a fantastic rib eye dinner from the grill, and we had a great time catching up. During dinner we were told that some of Max's friends were coming over to the house later that evening to watch a recorded version of the National Spelling Bee, and they were going to try to “compete” with the TV contestants.

Sure enough, after dinner Max's friends started showing up for the spelling bee, and Denny, Dawson and I went down to get in on the fun. And did we have fun! It was a riot seeing these guys, and to a lesser extent ourselves, trying to correctly spell words we had never heard of. Max and his friends are a crème de la crème group of great college kids, and Denny and I both have advanced degrees. I can honestly say that the TV contestants, none of which was over 14, left us in the dust! We had a lot of laughs!

Saturday, Denny, Dawson and his friend, Connor and I went to a Cardinals game while Cynthia took Bev on a shopping spree. Everyone was happy, including the Cardinals fans, after the Cards beat Milwaukee in 11 innings! Then the four “adults” (read, old folks) went to dinner at a nice restaurant in the neighborhood.

Again, it was so great to get to spend some precious time with our dear friends. As I told Denny, for all that we've seen and done since I started my sabbatical the middle of January, including road-tripping around the United States and spending two months abroad, nothing has been better than being able to see family and friends, getting caught up, and just spending time with them all!

Thursday & Friday, June 3-4: Road-tripping toward home

On Thursday morning, after a little walk to get some much-needed exercise, we left Atlanta for Memphis, passing through Mississippi before arriving in Memphis mid-afternoon. We had thought we'd reserved a room at a DoubleTree in downtown Memphis, but as we got close to Memphis, it became clear that our Garmin was taking us to somewhere other than downtown. Alas, we were at a suburban DoubleTree instead. Our whole reason for wanting to be downtown was to be close to the action of the infamous Beale Street and to the iconic Rendezvous rib place recommended highly by brother-in-law, Steve. So we went to the front desk and explained that we weren't where we thought we were going to be, and we were able to switch our reservation to the DoubleTree Downtown. Without any trouble, we found our downtown hotel and got settled in. We were hungry thinking about the dry-rub ribs Steve had told us about, so we went across the street to the Rendezvous and the ribs were as good as advertised. Bev stuck with her new pattern of having a beer, having converted to drinking beer while in Europe. After dinner we went for a walk to Beale Street, only about 3-4 blocks away. It was early Thursday evening, and though Beale was blocked off, the crowds were just starting to arrive. A number of blues bands had already started up, but we were both tired and Bev was suffering the effects of sinus congestion, so we didn't stick around, but instead went back to our hotel and I watched the NBA Playoffs between the Celics and the Lakers.

Friday morning, we got up, had breakfast and went to see the National Civil Rights Museum, which is located at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The museum was extremely well done, and very interesting. It was amazingly sobering to actually see, through glass, the room that MLK stayed in, and the very spot on the balcony where he was assassinated. The museum also includes the building across the street, where James Earl Ray stayed and from where he shot Reverend King. Of course, we remember so well that tragic day, and the aftermath. It was almost surreal to actually see this scene in person!

After about 2 ½ hours at the museum, we grabbed a fast-food lunch and headed out to spend the next couple of nights with our good friends, Denny and Cynthia Holter, in St. Louis. We are really looking forward to seeing them again!

Tuesday & Wednesday, June 1--2

Tuesday, June 1--It was so great to wake up on American soil today, and especially in the comfort of Kathy and Steve's lovely home in Winter Park! We enjoyed big mugs of American coffee this morning, took a walk in the neighborhood, then spent the day hanging out with Kathy and Steve in the Florida sun! Oh, and they were nice enough to take us to a burger place for cheeseburgers and fries! Bev also washed some clothes for our road trip back to South Dakota, and we gathered our stuff that we'd left there while we were abroad. Tonight Steve made a great grouper dinner and Kathy and Steve's kids, Kevin, Rich and Meredith and husband Nathan, and grand kids, Cameron, Ben, Jack, James and Kaitlyn, came over. It was so fun seeing everyone one more time before we leave tomorrow!

Wednesday, June 2--With the car all packed up, we left Kathy and Steve's pretty much on schedule, at about 9:30, and drove to Atlanta. We had talked to my USD (and O'Gorman) classmate, Tim Johnson, last night and arranged to meet Tim and his wife, Ann, for dinner in Atlanta. The trip was uneventful, and it seemed so good, although strange, to be driving on such wide roads, with such polite, good drivers! And not a single motorcycle wove in an out of traffic the whole way to Atlanta! We got to our hotel late afternoon. We'd worried about the horrible traffic that we've experienced before in Atlanta, but the traffic flowed well. Just as we were getting close to the Hampton Inn hotel, a heavy thunderstorm hit, and it made getting to the hotel more complicated. When we got there to check in, their phone and computer systems were down because of a lightning strike! So even though check-in was complicated by that, it was really nice to check into an American hotel with all the usual amenities! We especially like Hampton Inns--they're great. They even had complimentary beer, wine and soda when we checked in! Ahhh! Gotta love the USA!

Tim picked us up at our hotel, and took us to their lovely home in Northwest Atlanta. We met Ann and had a glass of wine before going to dinner. We really had a pleasant dinner in the historic restaurant, Vinings Inn, for some great Southern cuisine, and got caught up on Tim and Ann's family. Tomorrow it's on to Memphis, then looking forward to getting to our friends the Holters on Friday night in St. Louis!

Thursday, May 27th-Arrvederci Roma

We had purposely made reservations for a late-afternoon train to Naples so that Dick and I could squeeze out one last day of touring in Rome. We walked to the Spanish Steps and soaked up a little sun. Then just in case we hadn't seen enough churches, we did two more--Santa Maria Maggiore and St. John Laterine-where supposedly, the heads of Sts. Peter and Paul are in gold cases above the altar.

We met Vikens for lunch, said our good-byes and taxied to the train station. We used our Euro Pass to travel first class to Naples. Then we had to buy inexpensive tickets for a local "milk run" train to Sorrento, which took about an hour. From Naples south to Sorrento, the signs of poverty were evident to an extent that we have not seen in other parts of Italy. We had a reservation in Sorrento so we did't have to spend anytime wandering around town looking for lodging. Our hotel was billed as a "deluxe hostel", having private rooms as well as the dormitory style hostel rooms. The price was great, so we were expecting something pretty basic. When we arrived, we couldn't believe how beautiful and big our room was! The only problem is that unless there is a cancellation, they could only book us for one night. We found a great little roof-top restaurant called "The Garden" and had a light supper since it was pretty late. Walking around Sorrento before returning to our hotel, we felt very comfortable with the small, pedestrian-friendly feel of Sorrento and look forward to basing out of here for the next couple days.

May 28-29--Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast

Friday-May 28
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that there are no rooms available the next two nights, so we have to leave the “hostel”. The good news is that the hotel has set us up in an even nicer "sister hotel" which will be even closer to the train station when we leave on Sunday. So, we moved to the Hotel Antiche Mura, which means “The Old Wall” because the hotel is built right along one of the ancient city walls. Our room has a patio looking out on a swimming pool with a courtyard filled with flowers and lemon trees. The weather continues to be wonderful. Now this is what I had in mind when I dreamed of traveling to Italy!

After checking into our new room, Dick and I hopped on a local bus to see the Amalfi Coast. Past Sorrento, several smaller coastal cities cling to the cliffs along the Mediterranean. Buses take locals and tourists and forth between the towns on windy, narrow roads barely wide enough for two-way traffic which leads to some interesting negotiating when the bus meets up with oncoming cars, or even worse—-another bus!!! We took the bus to Positano, had more mussels than we could possibly eat for lunch and spent some time on the beach. Then we headed further up the coast to the town of Amalfi. Though picturesque, Amalfi was not much different than Positano or Sorrento and there didn't seem to be much going on. So after a brief walk, we got back on a bus for another thrilling ride back to Sorrento. At one stop, some American women got on the bus and we had a “Dakotativity” moment. In visiting with one of them, we found out that she was originally from Watertown, SD and her brother is an attorney still living in SD!

After dinner on the harbor, we returned to our room to sit on the patio and share a bottle of wine. The moon is full, but blocked from our view by the lemon trees!



Saturday-
We were really beat today, and Dick was coming down with a cold, so we decided to just relax in Sorrento and enjoy our beautiful room and the town. We did a little souvenir shopping but were limited by the lack of room in our backpacks. We enjoyed a little R & R around the pool. We had made reservations to return to "The Garden" Restaurant for another wonderful meal. We tried to get pretty well packed up, which is a lot like trying put toothpaste back into the tube, because tomorrow we need to get an early start on our last day of our two-month European trek.