Road Trip

A few hours ago, Jenna and I finished the drive from Southern Oregon to Colorado.  When on long drives, I'm always struck by the enormity of this land.  You can drive for hundreds of miles and never see another soul on the dusty rural highways of the western United States.  And all along, the language, culture, and national identity of the places and people remains constant.

With our departure to London so close at hand, I couldn't help but wonder how the vast stretches of our massive homeland will compare to the small, compact, incredibly diverse nations in western Europe.  In the time it took to cross a stretch of Nevada desert, I've heard a drive through western continental Europe could have taken us through more than a few distinct, sovereign nations, with their own languages and customs, histories and constitutions.

Such a thought is profoundly novel and exciting to me, an American who shares his cultural heritage with fellow citizens living as far as 3,000 miles away.

T-minus

Our departure date is rapidly approaching, and my excitement is growing by the day.  It still feels a bit surreal.  I'm pretty sure that feeling will persist right up until I step off the plane into London Heathrow, and probably beyond.

As I record my thoughts and experiences during this trip, I'll try to spare you, dear readers, the platitudes about culture shock, jet-lag and poor in-flight meals.  I know that most, if not all of you who will be following our posts here have far more experience traveling than I do, and for me to record the time changes, train meals and daily weather would make for incredibly tedious reading.  Instead, I will do my best to record how the places we visit affect me--not just how they make me feel, but what I will take with me in spirit from that place.  

That being said, this 10-month trip around the globe will be the first time I've ever set foot on foreign soil, so this blog will certainly serve as a diary of sorts: expect to see LOTS of pictures!  I hope that my entries will do justice to the incredible places and people we encounter on this journey.  

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.

Sean

Pack-a-palooza

This is it! As of last Monday, we are officially homeless. Out of our lovely little Portland apartment, all (okay, almost all) of our things packed away and awaiting our return in a 5x8 storage pod. For the next couple weeks we are visiting our beautiful hometowns, enjoying time with loved ones, and gearing up for our rapidly approaching departure. As we sold and packed the majority of our belongings, we narrowed it down: What are we REALLY gonna need? If we didn't "absolutely have to have it" we left it out. If we "absolutely had to have it", well, sometimes we left that out, too. We've been testing out some of our more crucial gear (good walking shoes, travel towels, zip-off pants, quick dry underwear, ya know, the whole-nerdy-9-yards) and making sure that we're only taking the bare minimum. You wouldn't believe how much stuff WON'T fit into a 75L backpack!~Jenna