|
|
 JB and Russell skiing on a bluebird day in Courchevel, France We sent home our ski gear today. Russell was the first to leave for home of those who came along to Meribel to ski and send us off. A life lesson we’ve learned from skiing is to keep your knees bent. Being flexible makes it much easier to absorb the shock of impact. We had planned to ship our extra two suitcases and two ski bags both to and from France. After being told about the cost and crazy paperwork, things began to shift. I wrote earlier about dragging them through the subways of Paris and the family’s revolt at the thought of repeating the process from the hotel to the train station.
Once we reached Meribel, we ran through our options, from leaving our stuff behind to bringing in our own carrier service. The latter seems to have worked nicely. John’s brother in law has dreamed of skiing here for a lifetime, but it was economically bad timing for him to join us. So, we made a new plan. We’d use some of our airline miles to get him here. Knowing we had several friends coming, we had rented a large house, and there was an extra bed in the “boys” room, just waiting for him. He packed light, and took two large bags full of our ski gear with him in the taxi this morning. He got to ski France and we got to both enjoy his company and avoid further hassle with most of our ski things.
Marlie’s we are leaving behind. She’s almost outgrown everything anyway, and the owner of the house we have rented has smaller children. That leaves John’s gear, hopefully the last of the ski buddies to head home can manage the extra stuff. The answers may not always be obvious, but sometimes they can make several people happy.
 Tweet This Post
 The Three Valleys, Fance, is the largest connected ski area in the world. It is hard to describe or imagine the vastness without experiencing it. As you approach one of the 25 summits, another valley of skiing opens below. Run after run, we explore, never crossing the same ground twice. We find ourselves becoming redundant in our awe as we look across this other valley and see lifts spread across both sides and tiny dots of skiers on groomed runs on the far side.
We have skied many places in the US, and there is nothing like it at home. Standing on a summit between two of the larger valleys, knowing there is so much more I cannot see, I can easily imagine this place could swallow more than 10 Mt Bachelors.
While the boys happily pump adrenaline on the steep slopes high in Val Thorens, the girls and I soak in the sunshine on the groomed runs down in Saint Martin or Les Menuires, even in the same valley our paths will not cross.
Tweet This Post
 Savoy cheeses on display As I was leaving home, my friend Murphy asked me to write about the food. We have eaten in a few restaurants, but tend to stay in, eating the local foods in our temporary home. Twice a week, there is an open air market in Meribel. Although many shops sell the same regional products, the cheerful open canvas booths make us feel like we are participating in something special.
The cheese and sausage booth displays abundance. Large flat wheels of cheese are stacked offset, making small shelves with small cubes for sampling. The dry casing on the aged cheese pulls up and peels like the bark of a birch tree. Other, smaller wheels are darkened blue and mottled. Softer, fresh cheeses form wrapped and labeled circles. We sample several of the aged, harder cheeses, their flavors range from very mild to sharp and nutty. These yellowed cheeses are firm and a little grainy from age, yet not crumbly. Perfect for melting or pairing slices with baguette.
We select some Beaufort and Comte. They sit in large wheels so big I could not reach around them. The cheese seller uses a small wire with handles on each end to slice through in one move and wraps and weighs our selection. He throws in a small wheel of Tomme de Montagne, a soft milk cheese that is white and creamy, and mild.  Sausages from Savoie Stacks of cured sausage sit between the cheeses, dried into misshapen tubes tied of on the ends. Smokey fume, Beaufort with powdery white casings, others crusted with pepper, and bumpy pure porc fill the spaces between wheels. All are wonderful sliced with a little mustard on the crusty fresh baked breads from the bakery up the street.
Another booth up the hill sells wine along with other cheeses and sausages. An abundance of producers make red and white Vin de Savoy, Beaujolais, and Cote de Rhone. We select a couple of bottles at random to complement the cheese and sausages we will eat later, as we sit in the living room with our family and friends who have joined us here. Sharing stories of skiing and past adventures.
Tweet This Post
We shared a day of quiet yesterday. The girls and I opted to lounge around the house, lazy Saturday. From the rented chalet we look down out the bottom of the Meribel Valley toward the mountains to the North and East. The forested valley walls are broken here and there by small villages, clusters of buildings surrounding a church.  Open market booths in Meribel Center Without a recent storm to renew the snow, it has receded into patches, rather than a blanket of white. South facing ridges and rooftops are bare, while their north facing counterparts are still covered, adding contrast to the relief.
We have spent the past week wandering and exploring by bus and gondola telecabine. We’ve made trips for groceries and wandered through the ski shops up at the resort center. In Meribel center, twice a week, there is an open market with vendor’s booths selling cheeses and candy, jewelry and polar fleece, dried fruit and sausages.
On Tuesday, we spent far too much on the fabulous cheeses and bags full of candy at this open market. Naturally, everyone in our family liked the most expensive cheese samples the very best. On Friday, when I returned with my camera to take photos, the woman selling candy, who happily took over 30 euros for her fancy confections yelled at me and told me I would have to pay her 10 euros if I wanted to take a photo of her colorful stand. Clearly, I won’t return for more candy when the girl’s bags have been emptied. Fortunately, the cheese man made no such threats.  The view of Mt Vallon from la Chaudanne in Meribel In Paris, which has a reputation for snobbery, we were met with more grace and kindness than anywhere here in the mountains. When we were dragging our baggage through the metro, not once did the girls navigate a stairway where somebody didn’t lend them a hand. At each turn where we even looked confused, people stopped and offered help. Shopkeeper’s greetings were warm and people in the ticket booths were happy to help.
Here, in Meribel, many of the workers have the tired look of the end of a long tourist season. Faces that have seen too many skiers and helped too many confused tourists that don’t speak their language well, if at all. Of answering the same questions and pointing out the same bathrooms for endless days. I recognize the vacant look from my years working at Mount Bachelor and from the dude ranch. By the end of the season, I wanted to hide and do nothing except go stare at trees. Here, in the Alps, it translates into a grocery store clerk who says not a word nor looks at the customer, shoving and endless stream of food over the scanner, the bus driver who is a bit too short with the passengers, and the woman at the candy booth yelling at her customer.
 Fabulous regional Savoy cheeses and sausages on display at an open air booth in Meribel. This evening, the first of our friends arrive. By the end of the week, we will have a house full of guests; those who have come to share in a part of our experience here, skiing and eating the amazing Savoyard cheeses, sausages, and wines. We will need to move our community school and work desk off the dining room table to make way for meals together. The party is arriving.
At home, we often spend a Saturday entirely at the house. Yesterday was our traveling version. The girls watched a movie, and I read for hours. We played cards and stepped out on the balcony to look at the valley. No school, very little work. A bit of laundry, and lots of quiet. Time for staring at the trees.
Tweet This Post
A fog has settled in the Meribel valley, and small flakes of snow hint of winter. Downstairs a little girl and her daddy just caught the ski bus up to Meribel center. She’s wearing her helmet with her favorite cover, the one with stuffed bone ends sticking out both sides. She calls herself “bonehead” through giggles when she wears it.
 Les Allues, France, in the Meribel Valley I’m waiting for her sister to finish her morning routine, we’ll explore more today, sans skis. We’ve walked around the ski area at Meribel and La Chaudanne. They have done a nice job of keeping the ski village feel with the new development, using natural wood and a chalet feel. It is chocked full of ski shops and places to eat and drink or buy things to eat and drink back in your ski rental. Just down the hill in Musillon there are a handful of cool old buildings.
Further down the valley is Les Allues, at its center is a cluster of ancient buildings of stone and aged wood and narrow streets; rough hewn history you can touch and feel. A church stands gazing at another village on the far side of the valley, holding fast to the canyon wall.
So began our day, little did I know that it would not be the relaxing ramble through the streets of Moutiers I had in my mind. Moutiers is the larger town at the base of the three valleys where the train station provides a connecting point between the resort area and the rest of France. It has a lovely pedestrian shopping area, with many more services and products than are available up in Meribel.
On my visit to the area two years ago, we had a rental car. Today, on this trip, we are limiting the car rentals to times when we must have one, a necessity rather than a convenience. Today was a lesson in inconvenience.
In the center of the Meribel valley is an aerial gondola that runs from the top of the ski area down to Brides les Bains at the bottom. Hannah and I had a wonderful plan to ride to the bottom and find a taxi or bus to take us the few more kilometers into Moutiers.
We arrived in the early afternoon, not aware that the town of Brides les Bains closed its doors midday for a couple of hours. There were scarcely any people, let alone taxis. The tourist office, all of the shops, and the post office were all closed. The next bus scheduled to Moutiers was in an hour. We’d not eaten, so after wandering for a bit I asked an older couple on the street in my lame French if there was a restaurant open anywhere close by.  Moutiers, France, pedestrian street After lunch, I asked the waiter to call us a cab. The driver was a fabulous beyond-middle-aged woman with her almost white hair in a little ponytail on top of her head, the remainder held up with a comb. She drove like mad, the way only a cab driver in their own element or a stock car racer can, and delivered us to downtown Moutiers.
I had two business items to take care of in town. I needed a new sim card for my French cell phone from my last trip, and I needed to exchange some dollars into Euros. Then we’d shop. The phone store was in the same spot where I picked up the phone last trip just down from the old church, the first on the list was simple. The people at the cell phone store told me there was a bank that could exchange my dollars at a bank next to the old church at the end of the pedestrian street.
Neither bank next to the church could. We did not have an account, and could not exchange dollars at either. I was starting to regret spending most of my euro cash at lunch in Brides les Bains. I did not have enough cash left for taxi fare back to the gondola.
The woman in the tourism office told us any bank would do this for us, and sent us to another a couple of streets away when I told her the two next to the church could not. The one she sent us to couldn’t, either, nor could the one across the street.
The teller at one of the banks who turned us away said the post office could exchange money, so we headed there. With relief at seeing a little British flag that usually denotes the person at that window speaks English, I asked about both the postcard stamps we needed for the stack the girls had written the night before and exchanging my dollars. She seemed both confused as to why I thought she should speak English and what I wanted. None of the three people at the windows in the Post office with little British flags over their heads spoke a word of English.
So limping by with my broken French from the travel CDs I’d listened to for months in my car and the help of a woman in line behind me, we ascertained that nobody in town exchanged dollars, that the bus from the train station was our best bet for getting back to our vacation rental cheaply, and that Hannah still had enough euro cash in her pocket to get us back home. I guess the lesson here is to go ahead and share the worry with the child rather than try to protect her from it, she may have the answer.
By this time, Hannah and I were both cold and tired, and lovely as Moutiers is, opted not to spend any more time wandering through the fog and drizzle. We hired a cab at the train station driven by a polite, if far less enjoyable, cab driver back to the base of the gondola in Brides les Bains. Happily, we slid into our aerial lift and were swept back toward our old stone house amongst the ancient barns and fog.
Tweet This Post
 Old buildings in the Meribel valley, France We’ve made it to Meribel. The view from our windows includes several ancient buildings, barns in disrepair quietly passing through time. Beams of timber, stone, and plaster patiently bearing snow of the winter season, another year blending into other decades.
It was raining yesterday, as we settled in. Our bags are unpacked, and we made a trip to the grocery store. None of us has worn a watch in years, as we’ve carried our cell phones. The modern day pocket watch, Dick Tracy in reverse. This, coupled with a 9 hour time zone change, and we have a heck of a time getting the bus arrivals to match ours at the bus stop. Not so great in the rain with bags of groceries.
This morning is spectacular, sunshine and blue skies. The girls and I have started our first school and work day. Both feel very good. The days of dragging luggage and minds sodden with jetlag made it impossible to find our routine. Now that we’ve settled a bit, we can and it feels like we are finally, truly living the planned location independent life.
I wrote a story for the main Gill Adventures site about the furious rain squall that hit us as we walked under the Eiffel Tower. Even in the back country, I’ve never seen a storm so suddenly violent I posted some Paris photos, as well.
 Looking down the Meribel Valley Our train from Paris was direct, thankfully, as we never figured out how to ship the luggage. We created quite a boarding bottleneck for traffic when we had to lug our extra bags up to the upper deck of the train to stow them. We were everywhere, flailing as if on ice. We’ve already started making lists in our minds of what we can ship back at the end of our ski weeks.
This afternoon we’ll explore, free of baggage and schedules.
~ We do have some photos of the 3 Valleys area from a previous trip, as well.
Tweet This Post
September 25th, Paris. Our grand plan for this trip involves skiing. John has been feeling time watching from the periphery of his awareness, bringing aches to joints where there was none, pressing his heart through the loss of friends. His dream of spending a season skiing in the Alps before time eroded his strength or left him unable to merged with our shared dream of experiencing places we did not know. The first leg of the trip seemed the most likely. We would arrive heavy with gear or ship it ahead, and send our bags home at the end of the season, to travel lighter.
Two days before leaving on our adventure, in the midst of short nights and over-scheduled days, we packed our ski gear into bags that could hold the four of us, and took them to FedEx. I had picked up forms a few days before, and had a conversation with the agent about how they should be filled out. So, between a follow up meeting with the teacher and speech and reading specialists at Marlie’s school, and picking up more plastic storage bags at Target, and changing out my PacSafe travel bag at AAA, the girls helped me schlep these four large bags to the local FedEx office.
This time, the agent told me I needed to go through the bags and write a line item for every object. The forms I had were, of course, far too short, and would need to complete all new ones with every item included. Their description would need to include the country of origin and the value, naturally. And, for those items which came from Asia, I would also need to fill out an individual form for every one of them and take it to the chamber of commerce and get a stamp from them on each sheet.
Now, I tend to shove stuff in when I pack. Whenever I am getting ready to travel, people ask me if I have started to pack yet. Even for a short trip with just a few nights from home. Not only is the answer always “no,” but I really don’t get the question. For this trip I did start a pile early, but the real packing, and picking out clothes, for that matter, happened a few hours before leaving. So, these bags we had packed early were crammed full of helmets, boots, ski clothes, skis, and poles. Not only did I not have time before the school meeting, this meant unpacking everything, reading the labels of things, many of which, ironically, come from France or Austria, making a trip to the Bend Chamber and explaining the situation to secure their approval, repacking, and dragging the bags back to the local FedEx office.
I understand countries need to control imports, but used ski equipment that will ultimately be shipped back home? To a country that does not even have us fill out an immigration or customs form when we arrive with luggage?
Online, I found a FedEx office two subway stops from our hotel in Paris, and decided it would be easier to drag them with us and ship them from Paris before we take a train to the Southeast.
This is how we found ourselves each pulling two bags with wheels and carrying at least one other backpack through train and metro stations, and dragging them through subway doors and up and down stairs. One stop, Marlie and I did not manage to get out the door before it closed, and we made a detour through the next station and multiple stairways to the return line. No ADA here…
I will say that people were very helpful and lent us a hand wherever they could. Helping the girls haul bags up or down stairs, sending us to the other metro entrance where the stoller/ wheelchair gate was so we could get our bags through.
Upon reaching our hotel, I found that their internet is down. I swear I printed the directions to the FedEx office, but can’t find them. The woman at the front desk called to ask about a pick up here at the hotel, but tells me FedEx does not do that here, and there is no way to ship bags to another location in France. Marlie and I went on a little exploration, to see if I could get there from memory of the Google map, but the rain and fatigue discouraged us and sent us back to the room.
I know they say the best way to overcome jetlag is to stay up this first day. That is under normal circumstances, not at the end of our preparations marathon. Once we were not standing, we slept like we were headed in for surgery. It’s evening. We’ll head to dinner now, and worry about the extra bags later.
Tweet This Post
February 24th or 25th, Somewhere over the Atlantic, waking up. The low passenger count on this flight allowed me the best sleep I’ve ever had in flight, although I have no idea how long. Of course, the two and a half hour night before we left helped me sleep now.
The last few days were as intense as I expected. Toward the end we were tossing the last of those things that we have surrounded our lives with into crates as quickly as we could. I hope the lovely young couple who will be living in our house with the pets will forgive the leftovers lest on the fridge and that the dogs don’t tear apart the extra bag of garbage we left.
For the past few years, I’ve pined for our younger days when our friends were so much more a part of our daily existence. When the complications of work and family did not get in the way of dinner parties, hiking, and trips to the coast. It’s not that I’ve lost touch with friends so much as experienced a lack of focus on them. The last three weeks before our departure brought the view through that lens back into clarity in the form of dinners, parties, and gatherings mostly involving drinks and food. These goodbyes were so welcome, we were happy to make the time for them out of our sleep schedule.
And so, Tuesday night saw all of us up into the early hours carrying boxes of our lives into the second garage and stacking them next to the Christmas ornaments and leftover empty boxes on a floor scattered with packing peanuts. With the taxi arriving at four, we managed to gather a couple of hours of sleep. The girls were fabulous, helping with the last of the dirty dishes left in the sink at midnight and dragging themselves out of bed at 3:30.
Whenever we begin packing for a trip, Ayla gets nervous, and lays on or next to the bags whenever she can, watching us with hope and sadness. For days, she’s been following us, an orange and white shadow. Sadie is younger and has not put together an understanding of baggage and leaving. Both are britanys, a breed who speaks of their emotions with every part of themselves. Joy at our arrival home brings bouncing barks and dog yells and wagging that ends at the neck. A jingle of car keys prompts intense stares and a pressure of will toward the door.
I sit in this darkened airplane and wonder how they are doing. It is evening at home, and new people and animals are in their place. The people who will share their home for the next many months also bring two new dogs and another cat. Will these new arrivals keep them distracted from the fact that we are not there?
Tweet This Post
Breathe. The swarm of thoughts and details that buzz through my head include an important one which I keep pulling back to the surface. Breathe. I look through my countdown list several times a day, and try to keep myself working on something, anything, rather than stare at it in blind panic. As things have been crossed off the list, more have been added. Quickly at first, and gradually slowing, now a balance of time and details remaining seems to have arrived.
Once we are on the airplane, we will need to let go of those things we can’t accomplish, and focus on what is ahead. The path to this point has been a climb. It all started with a decision to act “as if.” As if we were leaving to travel around the world in early 2010. In acting “as if” we made lists and worked toward our goal. Next week’s posts will be about where we are, as our adventure will have started. This week, I am taking a quick moment to breathe and look back.
There is the house we are leaving behind, including all of the things you might need to do when moving: notify utilities, find renters, take carloads of downsizing to Goodwill, and pack remaining belongings away. Fortunately for us, the people living here will not pay us rent but, rather care for our critters, and we are leaving most of our remaining furniture and stuff in place. We do have to take care of a couple of repairs and schedule a housekeeper to clean in our wake.
For our girls there is the education aspect, which I have written more about here in the blog and on Location Independent Parents. Both Hannah and Marlie wanted pizza with their friends on their last day of public school, and their last days held surprisingly few tears. Also, I didn’t realize the registration for Hannah’s Compuhigh was via snail mail, so it has not been completed yet. A little odd that an online school wouldn’t have online registration. Now what remains is the doing, falling into a routine that will work while we wander.
I had hoped to sell my car before leaving, but somehow the payoff amount I got from Ford was not correct. They must have deducted the upcoming scheduled automatic payment from it, because when I canceled and sent them the larger amount, it was short by one payment. Unfortunately, I didn’t figure this out until yesterday. Now my logistics include getting the car sold after we are out of the country. It’s detailed and ready to go, though. Somehow, having been used as a mobile tack room and kennel filled with saddles and dogs, it has not looked this nice in years.
Packing lists are an obvious concern. I swear with all the electronic paraphernalia we’ll have to carry there will be no room for clothes. To set up a mobile office and school for four people is huge. I am glad to have found the Igo chargers a long time ago, with tips for all sorts of things that need recharging. Fortunately, I think we can do without the mobile printer and scanner. Still, the cords and adapters alone have a bag of their own. Thankfully, there are abundant lists on the blogs of those who have done this before me, and I have added many of their suggestions to mine.
The packing lists then transform themselves into shopping lists. Of course with new equipment and shoes need to be tested and tried. Much better to trouble shoot where we still speak the language like a native and have easy access to Best Buy and TJ Max.
The details of our communications logistics needed attention. We settled on Earth Class Mail, a service that will scan and upload our mail, so we can get it from their website. They’ll also make deposits into our bank account, so payments from clients can find me. Skype accounts are set up for each of us; Marlie has already had fits of giggles video chatting with friends.
Naturally, our health insurance will not cover us for this extended period overseas. I’ve been working with April Medibroker to find the right balance of coverage and cost. Unfortunately, the HIPPA compliant expatriate plan they found for us also had a sticker price that almost gave us heart failure. I guess we’ll just have to go through the waiting periods again when we arrive back home and switch back to a US plan.
John is still working, and will be fairly tied up until a day or two before we leave. While it has been good to have the income, he struggles to keep his nerves from getting the better of him when he thinks about what he has yet to tie up. I have been looking for projects, and have been lining up clients and work to take with me. I wish I had more, but am hopeful. Not working full time as we head toward this adventure has been a blessing, and fortunately a couple of clients are not on a time crunch.
The girl’s passports would have expired while we were underway next year January, so we avoided a visit to an American consulate by renewing them now, and also got extra photos for all of us for visas. Those of you who have followed for a while know about my life lesson in passports. John and I picked up our international drivers licenses the other day. Those always seem hokey to me, but I guess we need them. Weird to me that AAA would be recognized by foreign countries as an authority where the State of Oregon would not. But, I don’t have time to argue that one.
This is all without starting the travel planning. Hotel reservations, researching cities, finding vacation rentals. Train routes and schedules, tourist visa requirements and where to apply for them while we are underway. Our first month is planned, beyond that we cannot see through the lists in front of us. As they shrink and disappear, I breathe easier.
Tweet This Post
We have spent a good part of our vacation time on rivers. The restless water and remote places calm or minds as we follow the current. When we are away from rivers, they still filter into our thoughts and influence our views. These experiences impact the way we plan, including the big leap we are taking in a few weeks.
The thing about rivers is you can’t see very far ahead. Maps and descriptions give you an idea of what is coming. Even so, streams change with rising water levels and shifting rocks on the riverbed create new dynamics in the current. You can’t float back upstream to a perfect campsite passed by, a missed opportunity becomes unreachable. The river teaches us to stay in the moment, and to plan but respect the fact that things change. To let go of our notion of “should,” and live in what “is.”
 Skiing in the Three Valleys, France, on a trip in 2008. As we work toward our trip around the world, we have managed to divert the question: “where are you going?” Mostly, because our own vision of it is not clear. But, it is to the point where if we don’t lay out our trail, we may miss opportunity. Much of what we plan is based on experiences of others, and people can’t comment on experiences we should not miss if they don’t know where we are headed. Several friends have talked about catching up with us at various stops along the way. Hard to plan for, if we are just “somewhere.”
We begin with a flight to Paris, and after a very brief stop there, on to Meribel in the Three Valleys to ski. A handful of friends will be joining us there, a send off party of sorts. John and I spent a couple of weeks there in 2008, and he fell in love with the snow and terrain. The Three Valleys is vast, a combination of eight large ski resorts linked together making it the largest ski area in the world. Meribel is in the center.
Our first house is only rented until late March. Not knowing how the snow will be, we’ve left the next destination open. We may continue skiing wherever the snow takes us, or just explore for a few weeks. We plan stay in the region, within an easy day’s travel of Geneva, as we have friends coming and going.
By mid- April, we will leave the Schengen zone, to keep some time available on our visas there in the summer. First on our list is Croatia. We envision a small town on the Adriatic, large enough to have an English speaking PADI dive shop, small enough not to need a car. We’ll plant ourselves there for a couple of months, with an excursion south to see a bit of Greece.
In summer, our plans take us through Germany to see some relatives, and to on explore the Netherlands. Friends have talked about summers spent on houseboats in canals, moving slowly though hand operated locks, an experience that we’re keen to try. I’d also like to include a trip to my ancestral home in Scotland, including Ferniehurst Castle in Jedburgh, although my father’s line of Kerr left hundreds of years ago and changed their name to Carr.
Sometime in fall, we plan to make our way to Africa. Little Monkey’s only requested stop for our trip is Cape Town, to visit the Penguin colony at Boulders Beach. She’s had a longstanding passion for everything ocean, and penguins are a big player in that love. We hope to venture up to Tanzania as well, to take in a park reserve and some diving on the coast, possibly venturing over to the Seychelles.
As winter arrives, we will need to decide if we have had enough of Europe or want to explore some of Spain. Our Schengen visa period would have re-started, allowing us another three months, and we would hate to miss the opportunity.
We’ve been looking at a stop in Bhutan, although they limit visitation through cost. While this keeps them from being overrun by tourists and preserving the cultural experience for those who make the trip, it may not work in our budget.  Cherry blossoms at night in Kyoto. Photo by my brother, Raymond Carr. Sometime late 2010 or early 2011, we’ll head to Thailand, and set up a home base there for a couple of months. We’d like to wander through Cambodia and Viet Nam as well. Here we will have to stick to the areas more developed for tourism, as we have no working knowledge of the language. That said, friends have said they could get by speaking French in Viet Nam, as a good part of the older population still speaks a bit.
We will end in Japan, returning to a country we have visited a couple of times and all love. Perhaps we’ll be there in time to eat more squid on a stick under cherry blossoms to celebrate spring. This return of Persephone will mark our own homecoming, were we’ll continue East to Oregon.
Our plans are a work in progress, shifting like water in a stream, following gravity and opportunity. Changing like a reflection in mercury.
Tweet This Post
|
|
~
~
~GBN~
~Raveable~
