Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

Sunday started like any other day under a Restricted Movement Order in a barely-familiar foreign country. There was breakfast and screen time and generally low expectations. Then we heard about Peru. The news reported that Americans (and others) in Peru were effectively stranded. There were no commercial flights available for them to depart and due to “optics,” according to the stories, the US government did not want to send in a military plane to evacuate them. Then we heard about Singapore. Several sources informed us that Singapore had revised its COVID measures and would prohibit even transiting (connecting) between flights for foreigners. Our main exit strategy had been eliminated. We had decided on Friday (March 20) that we would give ourselves a break for deliberating on our plans until Monday (March 23) but here we were on Sunday back at it. It's eerie to read the posts from Friday and Saturday in light of what's transpired since. What if Malaysia extends the RMO...

Here's our hotel room on a recent night-before-departure. This is hard for me to say but I made a mistake. I don’t even remember how or, specifically, why I made it. Fortunately, it hasn’t been hard to remedy. All I had to do was write two emails that included the word “cancel.” Here’s the rest of the story. When we left the US on November 1, we had plans for everything up to March 14th, when a plane would carry us from Mauritius to Johannesberg, South Africa. We had booked a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam for three weeks in late February and early March. We had booked a resort for four nights in Mauritius because it turns out that it’s one of the ways you can fly from SE Asia to South Africa. We had booked a crazy “transit hotel” in the Singapore airport for an overnight layover between a flight from Hanoi and a flight to Mauritius. It was all nailed down. I felt pretty good that this was a fair balance. We had done four months of domestic travel and we had planned fo...

First of all, is my math right? I know that we started on June 23rd but that was in the United States. Today is January 8th but that's in Australia. It's only January 7th in the US. Does that mean the trip is longer or shorter? Can anybody explain daylight savings time to me? Second, we've been having a really good week. Elise took the day off on Monday and regained some energy. We found a daycamp here that is effectively drop-in during their school holidays. For friends in Portland: this is like Campfire mixed with Trackers. In other words, it's awesome. We showed the kids the "menu" if activities on each day and the result was that Henry and Lily went on Tuesday, Ali and Cate on Wednesday and all four on Thursday. Arriving at St Kilda Park Primary School for TeamKids Camp We feel really satisfied and proud that our kids show up at a new venue with unfamiliar kids and adults and plunge right in. Henry made a friend, which led to a playdate and possibl...

Greetings from Los Angeles International Airport, where we are enjoying an overnight layover on our way to Costa Rica. It has been ten days since we pulled into Portland in the RV. Several times during that span, Elise remarked that she suddenly understands that it's possible to be hospitalized for exhaustion. This pivot, from phase one (RV) to phase two (foreign lands), was BIG. What you could see in our pictures, and in the memories of the children, is ten days of fun and excitement. Playdates, parties, sleepovers and reunions. Because of their ages - between 6 and 11 - their experiences were very different. The twins (6) had pure and unadulterated fun. They blitzed from one exciting visit to another, upset only when they were too tired to cope. For Lily, almost every moment of joy was tinged with longing. She was thrilled to be with friends but felt on the outside looking in. Theres tween drama that is absent from our family unit but there is also the sense of connection with...

There's a lot of fatigue going around. This day is a Monday. We wake up in a KOA surrounded by farm fields about 20 miles west of Memphis, in Marion, Arkansas. One of our travel skills is to look at a campground with Google Earth before we book it. We look to see how closely the campground sites are packed together. We look for evidence of a good (or bad) playground. We check out the pool. This one doesn't look promising. We execute breakfast. I can't think of a more appropriate verb. The KOA has a renowned restaurant. We got pulled pork sandwiches from them the night before and they were great. This morning the line is long and the food looks mediocre. School. This is a big day for Lily because we have withdrawn her from her online charter school and now we're going with a more traditional homeschooling approach. We got her new math curriculum from an Amazon Locker in Birmingham on Saturday and today we're diving in. It goes well and we feel encouraged. Honestl...

This is a post I wanted to write before we left. I hope I can still capture the sentiment. The kids - Lily (11) and Henry (8), especially - began to have complicated emotions as our departure approached. The departure was materializing all around them in the form of our household purges and nonstop planning/decision-making. The school year was ending and it was already a moody time for Lily finishing fifth grade because quite a few of her close friends will be moving to different (local) schools in the fall. At each opportunity, we took a picture of the children with one (or more) of their buddies. This is by no means exhaustive. In preparing this post, I'm enjoying the opportunity to look closely at their faces. Since two significant months have passed, I'm writing from the position of knowing how they've grown and changed; how they are (and are not) longing for these friends and these friendships. We've been sending (and receiving post cards) during the two mont...

It's 10:42 at this moment and there's a roughly 97% likelihood that we'll be on the road in 12 hours. In between there may be some sleep. I can't remember a "night before" as exciting as this. Before college? before grad school? before my first day of my first job? before our wedding? before our children were born? We're asked all the time, "are you ready?" and each time we deflect. Of course we're not ready. You're never ready. Nothing in the world can prepare you except departing. We met on a bike tour across the United States. Nine weeks, four thousand miles and no amount of riding beforehand could prepare you for riding so many hours on consecutive days and sleeping on the ground, night after night. Maybe there's a difference between "ready" and "prepared." One thing we are for sure is packed. Each of the four kids has a suitcase and a backpack. Each of us has a duffel with wheels and backpack straps. Th...

I am writing this post to myself to read in about 15 months but maybe some folks reading it will relate to the issues I'm trying to address. Some folks - the ones I work with are foremost on my mind - may or may not want to plumb the depths of my psyche like this! Dear Jon, At the start of this trip, you were struggling with stress and the impacts it has on your health as well as the people around you. Remember the dry mouth and swollen tongue that doctors (both western and eastern) told you was the result of high stress? Remember getting a bunch of blood tests with borderline results? Remember the night when Lily sat you down and told you that yelling isn't normal and shouldn't be normal and could ruin the trip? Yeah, that was you in June 2019. You've struggled with anxiety your whole life. When you were a kid, you used the term "perfectionist" to explain why you had tantrums if your tennis serve didn't go in. In your early (and unsuccessful) relati...

People are saying "Now it's getting real" to me on an increasing basis. My last day of work was last Friday (today is Wednesday) so I'm on day three of my new life in which everyday is a mad sprint to accomplish pre-departure things. There's a not-so-small part of me that wishes we were leaving tomorrow. Just rip the band-aid off and get it over with! For this first phase of the trip, in which we drive our own vehicle from Oregon to Minnesota and then base ourselves there for about two months, we have basically everything we need. A big accomplishment this week was obtaining and installing a bike rack. Ultimately, this required a hacksaw, duct tape and some moleskin (to protect our bumper from a security bolt) but now it's on there! We ordered packing cubes yesterday. A few weeks ago we ordered  a set of color coded matching rolling bags for the four kids. (This winter we had settled on a set of Osprey duffels for ourselves.) I'm kind of bummed that th...

So it's now less than a month until "wheels up." I have four days until I begin my leave of absence from work. Things are getting kind of nuts. First, here's an update on the itinerary. We've booked our tour package in Cambodia and Vietnam from February 19th to March 7th. The main things we're working on are two weeks in South America between Buenos Aires and Santiago and two weeks on the north island of New Zealand. Once we figure that out, we can think about roughly five weeks that follow Vietnam, which will include going to South Africa for some kind of safari-centered trip of maybe 2-3 weeks. On the way there or on the way from there to Europe we are going to do a multi-day layover in Doha through a deal from Qatar Airlines. In short, we keep struggling with the temptation to go to more places versus our drive to get below the surface in a smaller number of places. I think we're getting close to buying our next batch of plane tickets. Second, d...

We don't know much but here's the itinerary as it's coming together... Part 0: USA Acadia National Park Blueridge Parkway/Skyline Drive Civil Rights Tour of the South Southwest Yosemite Part 1: South America 1 Week at Surf Camp in Tamarindo, Costa Rica 2 Weeks in Buenos Aires 2 Weeks elsewhere in Argentina (and surrounds) PART 2: Oceania Hamilton Island (5 days, 4 nights) Melbourne Perth Elsewhere Sydney 2 Weeks of RVing NZ South Island 2 weeks on North Island PART 3: SE Asia Guided tour of Vietnam/Cambodia