[written jointly by Brice and Leah]
Wrapping up our amazing trip to Bali. Currently, in San Francisco airport at 1:30 am waiting for our final leg back to Denver. I’ve been to the SFO airport a hundred times, and kind of bizarre to have Terminal 3 all to ourselves.
Focus of this blog post is …
- Surfing is harder than it looks, but we both did get up on the board.
- The “art of doing nothing is real” … morning coffee, sunsets with a cold beer, reading, writing, talking. To some it may sound boring when “doing nothing”. But there’s a lot being accomplished during those quiet moments.
- And returning back to Denver. Made the most of the past 6 weeks away from work and typical grind, but ready to get back in the saddle … and squeeze our sweet chocolate lab, Ruby.
As we embark on our 38 hour door-to-door journey back to Denver, we reflect and unanimously
voted that our biggest take away is – Doing NOTHING is GOOD. Leah's nasty toe incident forced us to edit our plans, which was the best plan we would never plan … slow
morning coffees, long sunsets with a cold beer, patio reading, writing,
talking. Some may call it boring or lazy, but we found the
accomplishments during those quiet moments to be priceless.
It helped that we had front row seats to
the most beautiful people in the world "hanging loose" on crazy 10 foot
waves. We humbly gave it a go - MUCH harder than it looks and happy to
have gotten up even for a few seconds. The phrase “tube pig” refers to those surfers that bomb through barrel waves and crouch down as the pipe folds above. Leah and I are not tube pigs. I rented a board myself, and was over-matched by the current and the coral that cut my feet. Doing the basics of laying on the board, balancing and paddling forward was harder than expected. But we finally had good weather + good instructor, and both were able to stand up and ride small waves for 5-10 seconds.
As for the “art of doing nothing”, the point there was it’s nice not always having a detailed agenda. I know, I know … can’t believe I said that. But the fact that Leah was able to have 9 massages over the 4 weeks in Bali, speaks to our agenda being pretty loose.
Bali completely embodied a “we’re in this together” spirit. We are so thankful to be recipients ... from energy cleansings in Ubud to our sunrises + sunsets + surfing in Bingin Beach.
Gotta mention some great meals - thanks Lucky's for the addictive Mie
Goreng, oreos with my espresso, and fresh snapper; Single Fin for the
OG surf vibes and Gooseberry for a great glass of wine (FINALLY -
alcohol is not a Balinese priority.) Plus the interesting people we met during our journey. For example, met the owner of a surf camp, named Joel, who had wild stories of surviving COVID when tourism dried up. Really nice to be able to meet people with such rich, interesting backgrounds. Here’s Joel’s surf camp if interested … https://www.aurasurfresort.com/ … looks sweet.
And found time to take more pics, put our toes in the sand, and even slap a UX Catalyst sticker (from work) on a surf shop door with other good vibe stickers. Ended with Ananta, our driver that helped us while in Bali, dropping us off at the Bali airport … more than 24 hours ago! Ananta is a fantastic person, and took time to share stories re: Balinese culture, politics and perspective on life, family and connecting with your environment.
But now it's 2:00 am and we're in SFO waiting for our final leg back to Denver (SFO is a ghost town, but there’s still hip club music playing in the bathrooms … just weird). Leah did snag a pic of me snoozing with my fancy eye mask on (see below).
Hope you enjoyed following our adventures. We're not professional bloggers, but good to be able to share back with friends and family.
Brice and Leah
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