Posted on Fri, Mar. 14, 2003

Tech worker galloping onto adventure trail
By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News


Sometimes you just need a change of pace.

Trot. Canter. Gallop. Whatever.

Garry Stauber knows that. He's spent years helping start Silicon Valley companies and hiring people to work at them. (And lately, not so much hiring people.)

So, Stauber thought he'd go for a horseback ride.

A long one. Like from Oregon to Mexico. Four or five months long.

Is he nuts?

``There is no short answer,'' Stauber says of his thinking.

Stauber, the staffing manager for Silicon Storage Technologies in Sunnyvale, didn't grow up in a cubicle. He grew up on a farm in Texas, sharing the land with a lot of horses, which he's found to be good company.

``I have a huge love for my horses,'' he says, standing on the Morgan Hill land where he recently boarded his six horses. ``They have personalities and everything.''

And they get great gas mileage.

This weekend Stauber will saddle up and ride off into the sunset and the traffic and the mountains and the snow and the occasional horse-riding groupies. About 1,500 miles in all.

Few have ridden a horse the length of California in the time since there have been other ways to get the job done. An exact number is hard to come by, but rest assured these are serious horse people.

Stauber has been planning his trip for two years. He sold his 110-acre ranch near Aromas so he wouldn't have the expense on the ride and so he'd be guaranteed a nest egg when the ride was through. He's scouted routes, planned food drops and recently started sleeping in a sleeping bag on the hard floor.

He even moved his horses to rented land right along Highway 101, so they'd get used to being around cars, which they will be regularly on the trip.

``I don't want to screw up,'' Stauber, 47, says. ``I want to succeed.''

And now, with the economy stuck in neutral at best, it seems like the time to take a leave and go.

Stauber is doing what almost everyone has thought about. OK, maybe not on horseback, but consider the getting away, the adventure, the obeying nature's clock instead of punching a time clock.

``Not that I'm in a mid-life crisis or anything,'' he insists. He really insists.

Stauber, who's divorced, will ride alone many days. Occasionally a friend or one of his adult sons will join him along the way. He'll alternate daily between horses Guenevere, a palomino, and Ginger, a bay. One will carry him. The other will carry supplies. He'll start riding south from Panoche near Hollister -- putting up with spring snow in the mountains to avoid summer heat in the desert.

Then he'll trailer back to Panoche and spend a few days in the Bay Area seeing to his horses' needs, before heading north to Oregon.

These days, Stauber is waking before dawn, worried -- worried about keeping the horses healthy and riding through snow in the San Bernardino Mountains.

He's even worried about traffic on days he'll ride along roads and highways.

``What do I fear?'' he says. ``Roads with no shoulders.''

Stauber plans to return to Silicon Storage when he comes down off his horse. But the trip will give him a chance to figure out what comes later. What will retirement look like? Where will he live? What will he do?

He can't say for sure today, but whatever the answer, it's a good bet it will include a horse or two.

Copyright © 2003, Knight Ridder Inc.
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Hey! Have an only-in-Silicon Valley story? Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5536. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED Follow Stauber's ride at http://dream-adventures.com.