A Second Job

Getting ready to goof off for a year is really a lot of work. Nobody told me I’d be working 10 hour days and still feel a bit overwhelmed. Now I know you can just get up and go. Plenty of plucky adventurers just buy a ticket and hit the road. I even did it once when I was 22. Threw some old clothes in a secondhand backpack, got a passport, and jumped on a plane a few weeks later.

But a decade later it’s a little harder to just up and leave. Things need to be organized, somewhat. Loose ends tied up, if not in a boyscout knot at least in a scissor-curled bow. I do hold out on the hope that once every kitty is nestled in its fuzzy catbed and everything else is nestled in its storage cube that I can let go a little more. Not have to have it all figured out. Not have a 12 tab excel spreadsheet of stuff to categorize, calculate, and remember to do. Not live by a list to check off.


And just float for awhile. Somewhere in the Aegean sea perhaps...

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First Need XL Water Purifier

Dubbed the best portable water purifier for hiking and camping by Modern Outpost, we are hoping this doohickey will save us loads of money on bottled water simultaneously saving us from waterborne illness.

The specs on the First Need XL Water Purifier that make it special include a 0.1 micron filter that filters out all 3 classes of microbiological baddies, including cysts, bacteria, and viruses. JC has even purported such extreme uses as drinking water filtered through this purifier from rivers in Calcutta and Nepal, and has lived to tell tale. That gets my seal of approval!

And as an added bonus, I do hear that you get big biceps from filling a few containers a day so Ron has his daily workout regimen to look forward to. I’ll be sure to make him switch it up so he doesn’t come back all outta whack with one arm brawny and the other scrawny.

Yes, I am also a poet.

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Feckless Drifting

We went up to the Olympic Peninsula to visit my Mom and drop off camping gear and other essentials for after the trip, like a business suit (banishing the thought about future job interviews for now!). They have an incredible house with an equally incredible view of the bay. And we ate like kings, my Mom the chef recreating Lamb Shank with Mushroom Bolognese from the Tra Vigne cookbook, and drank like royalty with “her Ron” as the always savvy sommelier serving wine from his home-crafted wine cellar. You know its special when a Ledson makes the line up. I am careless to not have a photo of this masterpiece. And this is on Mother’s Day!

I should have been the one cooking. Although I did chop some of the ingredients like a dutiful sous chef, I would then disappear into the office to offer meager technical support to the home network configuration kerfuffle in progress. Just 3 days ago I configured Rocky’s router, network, printer, and file sharing in under an hour. That is the bliss and then ultimate aggravation of technology. One minute easy, the next impossible. And then Vista, forget it!

But after the plate was licked clean, the last drop of wine drunk, and the router was secure and purring it was almost already time for our departure from the warmth of my family.

My mom is just amazing and we are so incredibly lucky to be as close as we are even, and especially, as the years go by. She had tears in her eyes as we gave our last hugs for the year, although hopefully we meet up at some point on the trip, “perhaps New Zealand!” saying she felt like she was birthing me into the world again. That moment made me feel like a little girl full of a mothers love, which is like no other, and confident to follow my heart wherever it may lead. My mom with her unwavering support is unabashedly proud I’m running off to see the world. With full permission to be a "feckless drifter". I like the sound of that! But I admit I didn’t know what feckless meant and had to Google it later.

Feckless (Adj) Lacking purpose; Without skill, ineffective, incompetent; Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way; Lacking vitality

Hmmmmmm. This doesn’t seem exactly what I thought it meant or what I think she meant. More of a drifting with no ulterior motive but to drift. Travel for travels sake. Not needing to get anywhere but to be just where you are when you get there.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

That will be my definition of fecklessly drifting around the world.

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Trail of Ten Falls

We are in Damascus, Oregon visiting Ron's brother Rocky and his wife Sue. They bought a little house in the country only 20 miles outside the bustle of Portland and have spent 3 years transforming it into a paradise. Rocky is a creative wonder at restoration and I can tell how much Ron admires and looks up to him more than anyone else in his life. I’m so happy we could come spend a few days before our big trip, and it was packed full of good eats, playing pool and darts (and being severely beaten at both), a bonfire on a cold drizzly night, late night swinging from an old elm tree, and of course copious amounts of laughter and of course bourbon.

We really both wanted to stay longer if we could. Enjoying the easy life with such great company. Rocky and Sue are one of those special couples that you know exist but all too rarely see. They totally complement each other and are so much in love, you can tell when they look at each other that nothing else matters more.

And to top it all off, yesterday we went on THE MOST AMAZING hike I've ever been on, the Trail of Ten Falls in Silver Falls State Park. I don't mean to scream but I’m going to...WOW! It was mid-week and raining so we basically had the trail to ourselves. The green moss covering every open space of rock and tree. The river gurggling . And the roar and soft spray of waterfall after waterfall after waterfall. There were 10 falls ranging from 27 to 177 feet and then many more impromptu run-off waterfalls that would be the highlight of any normal hike. But this was no normal run-of-the-mill hike. Some of the falls you could even walk behind and get to a space where you are totally surrounded by the sight and the sound and the spirit of the fall. Such a magical feeling.

Check out the video below that Ron put together. Hang in there, its BIG!

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Chez Panisse

Ron took me to Chez Panisse in Berkeley tonight for my birthday dinner. And let me tell you it was YUM. I've been wanting to go for years now and it might have been the end of our relationship if he didn't pull out the reservation this time. I joke. But only mildly. I've been dying to go and it didn't disappoint. We got the most romantic table right in the front window. And as I sat enjoying an asparagus tart shaped like a slice of pizza and spit roasted chicken with morel mushroom sauce, I realized that this would be the most expensive dinner I would eat for the next several years.

We have eaten in some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area, mainly for birthdays and anniversaries. There was the neverending dinner under the bigtop canapy at Fleur de Lys, the best crack-duck ever at Applewood Inn, the imprompu fireworks at Forbes Island, the proposal extravaganza at Julias Castle, the stoned waiters at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, the talkative man dining alone next to us at Silks, and the all consuming all scrumptious lobster pot pie at Michael Mina. God, I love food. And we have been so lucky to live and eat in the foodie wonderland of the Bay Area.

But not all dinners have to be expensive, we've had a thousand amazing meals on the cheap, in dives, tacquerias, and taco trucks that have been just as good if only that they are simple and warm and under 5 bucks. I really can't wait for authentic italian pasta, fresh french cheese, indian masala, thai gang panang,....and on and on. Real food from around the world instead of food from around the world eaten in a mall food court. Doesn't quite compare. I'm sorry I don't mean to spoil your Yokohama rice bowl : ) eat up!

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Laptop

Check it out, my new laptop! It's an Asus Eee PC 904HA. Ron got it for my birthday so I can blog up a storm and stay connected to our family by skype via a built in webcam. And it's only 8.9 inches and under 2lbs so its mini-sized which is perfect for travel. It has 160 GB Hard Drive for our gazillion photos and a 6 cell battery which should last up to 5-6 hours of regular use.

So far I love everything about it except for the page up key is placed where the right shift key should be so as I write I end up the previous driving me crazy line and turning it into a jumbled mess. It's really I'm almost ready to just put everything in lowercase. See what I mean!

Edit: they no longer sell the version I originally bought but they have a new version ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-MU27-BK that is 10.1" display with a larger 250GB hard drive. It even comes in colors: pink, white, blue, black. All for less than $350, you can't beat it as a traveling companion, and you can always stay connected!

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Party Like a Rockstar

Last nite we threw a party in our loft to say farewell to our friends. It was a pretty good turnout, even a last minute surprise visit from a NY colleague, although a few notable exceptions were no-shows, you know who you are and we are mad. Mad I tell you.

We advertised it as BYOB since we are unapologetically being cheap and saving every dime for our trip. But everyone brought over so much beer, wine, and alcohol we need to throw another party to get through it all! Seriously if we drank it all we may never get through packing or just end up labeling every box incorrectly or incoherently like "odd socks make good puppets". Now that I think of it, I could probably use another Vodka-Rockstar right now...

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