Greetings Jolly Readers,

Hopefully this will stamp out some of the confusion many of you are having as to why we aren't in South America at the moment.

Basically, we spent to much time tooling around the US in an RV, so the calendar became a bit of an issue for our planned activities in South America. So instead, we decided to just change our plans completely and in fact go around the world in a completely different direction. We started in Britain because I've always wanted to go freeze my ass off at Hogmanay (New Years Eve and then some) and we figured we could find plenty to do in London even if there isn't any actual daylight.

So now we think we have a basic itinerary for most of the rest of the way round. Here's where we think we're headed:

First we're off to Morocco, and then to Egypt. That's all we actually have booked, but we think from there we'll go to Israel (and Jordan to see Petra) and then fly to Kenya or Tanzania where we will try to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and then travel down the east of Africa to South Africa. After that, we plan to head to India. It now occurs to me thats really as far as we can predict. So I hope that is in some way useful. We always welcome recommendations on things to see and do and we really appreciate those we've gotten so far. (Thank You Diana Scherer)

The Popcorn at the VUE movie theater in Leicester Square tastes like Benzene. But you should go see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang anyway.

You know a country is serious about its holidays when even the chinese carry out places are closed. We managed to enjoy ourselves anyway in part due to the good grace of Tom, and partly due to the two of us having done some actual planning. Oh stop gaping, its not THAT much of a shock. As for Tom, he is an old friend of mine from High School whom I seem to bump into every five years or so, and he has, quite generously, given us his flat in West Hampstead while he is away for the holidays.


So we've been watching season four of 24 on Tom's plasma television and eating a bunch of Christmasy English food we stocked up on from Harrod's. We have become rather devoted fans of the local puddings. So far sticky toffee pudding is far and away the favorite, but gingerbread, saucy chocolate and christmas puddings have also performed commendably. We haven't just been eating pudding however, though I'm not sure why not, we also had a duckling apple and Calvados pie, a few wedges a quiche, and some scotch eggs. I found a spicy apple and sage jelly to go with my scotch eggs and pie, but Heather would have no part of it. Breakfast has been chocolate criossants, and butter criossants with strawberry jam and clotted cream. We have, in short, not been suffering.


So to catch you up on the major events of the past week...


1. We went out to dinner for our anniversary at Trader Vic's and had really good food, some fantastic drinks, and the worst possibble service imaginable. OK, I suppose it could have been a bit worse, the waiter could have actually hurled food at us or bludgeoned us with spoons or something, but it was as bad as it could have been without us pressing charges. We did the next best thing, we filled out the comment card. That'll show 'em!


2. We went to Westminster Abbey and visited Darwin and Newton and other notable entombed folk. Then we watched a woman who refused to eat anything pass out a bunch of times. That was sort of fun.


3. That's actually about it. Heather was feeling a little bit under the weather for a few days so we took it easy on the tourism front. We went for a few major walks and watched the shiny lights on Regent street, which included a pilgrimage to the Apple Store in SoHo, which has the best free wifi in town.


We're planning on venturing outside today as we've run out of food and have finished watching 24. Hopefully we will also get some of our itinerary hashed out for after we leave Britain, so expect an update on that soon. I'm sure some of you who thought we were headed to South

America first are very curious to hear how we ended up here and what we are planning next. Hopefully we'll have an answer soon.

I say Part One, because there are bound to be more posts with this title.

So, we didn't wind up going to the southwest coast after all. When we checked back in to our little Bath B&B, the owner gave us some good ideas of day trips we could take while still stationed in Bath. As it sounded much simpler than finding a place to stay in a part of the country that is usually shut down for winter, we stayed in Bath. Our first day trip was to Wells and Glastonbury.

Wells has a very impressive cathedral, with the world's second oldest working clock (oldest with its original parts). There is also a Bishop's Palace with some ruins and a moat. There are mute swans in the moat that ring a bell to get fed.

Glastonbury is the fabled home of Avalon. Glastonbury Abbey is a ruin dating back to AD63, when Joseph of Arimethea supposedly brought Christianity to England for the first time. King Arthur's "tomb" is also located here. The town of Glastonbury is Hippie Central. There are lots of crystal shops and a hair salon that doesn't use chemicals (what's the point?). If Portland, Oregon had a Celtic Quarter, it would be Glastonbury. We did stumble upon a great little cheese shop, though.

Because we purchased The Real Ale Pub Guide while in London, we knew exactly which pubs to visit in each little town.

Our second day trip took us to a quaint little village called Castle Combe. We also visited Avebury, which is like Stonehenge, but on a larger scale, with a village built into it. Next came Lacock, which has appeared in movies such as Harry Potters 1 & 2. They wouldn't allow the film crews back for any additional filming, however, as it was very disruptive to the townsfolk. We ate an absolutely delicious lunch there at The George Inn, which has been a licensed establishment all the way back to 1361. We had deep-fried brie wedges (tastes oddly like marshmallows), duck sausage and stuffing pie, and goose breast with cranberry sauce. Yummy. Stonehenge was next. If you've ever been to Stonehenge, then you probably understand when I say that it's just not that big a deal. It's exactly like it is everywhere else you've seen it. If it's just around freezing and very windy, it's that much more unpleasant. As usual, I was unable to stay awake while riding on the bus.

In other news, gay marriage starts this week in various parts of the UK. As long as I don't have to see Rosie O'Donnell over here, then I'm all for it. Could you imagine being a guest at Elton John's wedding? That would be worth dressing up as a waiter and sneaking in. Also, Simon Cowell is much nicer in the UK. (Congrats to Shayne for winning The X Factor!)

Finally, I have so much time to post today, because we have spent the past 5 hours (plus a couple yesterday) trying to post pictures to the gallery. It's working, it's just really slow and laborious. You'll find them all under The United Kingdom. Picture uploading is a giant, slow-twisting-knife kind of pain. So you people had better be looking at them. Seriously, we can see how many times each picture has been viewed. Those counts had better reflect your interest, because our normally harmonious marriage can't take arguing over picture uploading methodology for no good reason.

Tomorrow, back to London. Be sure to leave a comment wishing us a Happy Anniversary.

Here we are in Bristol. When I signed off last night, I said we would figure out today why we came here. Turns out there was no reason. We want to visit the southwest corner of England (Penzance, Lands End), and thought this would be a good jumping off point. Turns out we had to stay at an overpriced Holiday Inn Express last night, and couldn't find anywhere to stay tonight, so we are actually heading back to our little B&B in Bath to plan our foray to the coast. Oh well.

To make it seem like we came here for a reason, we are going to have a pint at the Bag o' Nails, because Matt has a shirt from there.

We are back to London on the 20th (our 2nd anniversary for those of you that keep track). Matt did a wonderful job of procuring us 4-star accommodations on Priceline.com for the 4 nights until we "housesit" for his friend.

Until then, cheers!

We are in Bristol, England. We just came from Bath. Because of our continued jetlag, Matt is asleep and I am awake. It is about 8pm. The other day, Matt told you all that he thought we would be done with jetlag. That might have been true, if not for the friendly and generous locals in Bath. They must have thought we looked mighty thirsty. Long story short, we required a very long nap the next day. Hence, jetlag continues.

Tomorrow, we will figure out why we came to Bristol.

This is our second attempt at our first international journal update. The first attempt resulted in bytes flying all over the pub and two irritated bloggers who had scratched out an update in Grafiti on our Palm, only to see it vanish in a whiff of wifi whumbuggery. Nothing like hanging out in England to make one start thinking in alliterative nincompoopery.

Anyhow, we've lucked out because we found a pub with a very good semi-free wireless internet connection. I say semi-free because they insist that in exchange for the use of their airwaves, you look at a dirty picture every 10 minutes. As they are so fond of saying over here, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Come to think of it, I've not actually heard anybody say any such thing, but it sounds very English, doesn't it?

We arrived here at a really horrendous hour friday morning, and tried our damndest to stay awake. We wandered around The Museum a bit, but were losing strength quickly and pretty soon all the 400,000 year old axeheads started to look the same. Which, now that we've been back to the museum in the following days, should have been serious cause for alarm as we discovered that there weren't any axeheads in the first place.

We've been a bit worse for wear since then as well. This is by far the most traumatic jet lag we've ever been subject to. The really tricky bit, is that I'm awake when Heather is asleep, and vice-versa. We might be okay today though, time will tell.

Well, get on with it Matt, surely you haven't JUST been to The Museum? No, we also walked down to St. Pauls and stopped on the way for lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which is about one of my favorite meals in the whole world. Lunch, in this context, is strictly defined as Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding and pints of Sam Smith's Old Brewery bitter served from Oak Casks.

Last night we also subjected ourselves to Leicester square and Piccadilly Circus. Those have now been ticked off our to do list. There were lots of giant crowds and shiny lights, which are qualities endearing in Las Vegas, but totally irritating with an english accent. Furthermore I was horribly upset by the fact that my beloved pound pizzas had gone up in price to a pound fifty pizzas, and I didn't think this was possible, but the pizza is significantly worse.

Today we'll be finishing at The Museum and then heading to the train station to figure out where to head next. We'll be back in London on the twentieth or so, so if you have any "Can't Miss" recommendations for us, file them now. Thank you.

Ok, the photo gallery is back on line I think. If you have any problems with it please let me know. I added an empty album for our next stop, the UK, so keep an eye out for new pictures to show up there. Also, to make the first page of the gallery load a bit faster, I moved all of our pictures from the US leg of our trip to a new a new Subcategory. I highly recommend everybody check out the rather bizarre beauty of Antelope Canyon

The picture gallery is temporarily out of service. I was trying to do an upgrade and something went... awry. At any rate, It will hopefully be fixed rather quickly, the staff at our hosting company is really good. If it is not fixed, we will simply install a new gallery for new pictures, so not to worry. We're off to London thursday afternoon and will post again once we get there.

Mike Birbiglia, that's who. Last night, we saw Mike perform at the DC Imrov. Mike is a fellow Georgetown grad and a very successful standup comic. He is recording his second CD at the DC Improv through Sunday, so if you are in DC, check him out. He's a real hoot. And if you are in New York, he will be taping his second Comedy Central half-hour special later this month. Get free tickets to the taping here.

We are in West Chester, PA right now visiting our pals Alex and Nicole Scherer and their baby, Georgia. Georgia likes to say, "Dibbadibbadibbadibbadibbadibba baby dibba."

We will be heading back to Raleigh this weekend. We leave for London on December 8!!! We are finally leaving! (The RV is still for sale.)

Thanksgiving dinner at Matt's parents' house was a resounding success. We even introduced two Brits to the traditional American holiday, and we think they might try to find a way to be in the US every November from now on.

Here are the recipes that Matt and I contributed to dinner:

Beer-Brined Turkey
14 to 16 pound turkey
3 gallons of brown ale
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
A spice cabinet that hasn't been cleaned out in a while
Canola oil
A cooler
Foil

Dissolve sugar and salt and a few cups of the beer in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Start adding anything you can find from the spice cabinet. There is no way you can mess this up, so use it as an excuse to clean out the cupboard. Let everything simmer for a little while. Turn off the heat and allow to cool while you rinse off the turkey. Put the rinsed turkey into the cooler. Pour the cooled brine mixture over the bird. Pour on more beer until the entire turkey is submerged. It might float. If it does, you can weigh it down with a plate. Do this a day or two before you want to cook the turkey.

When it's time to cook the bird, set the oven to 500 degrees. Rinse the little bits of spices off of the turkey, pat it dry with paper towels, and put it in the roaster with a rack. Coat it with canola oil. Put in the super-heated oven for about 20 minutes. THERE WILL BE SMOKE. THIS IS OKAY. After the 20 minutes are up, turn the heat down to 350 degrees. Cover the breast of the turkey with foil (it doesn't need any more direct heat). Continue to cook until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. It should be about another 1 1/2 to 2 hours. MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE: I will refund what it cost you to read this recipe if you do not wind up with a delicious, moist turkey.

Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 stick butter
4 eggs
1/4 cup bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans
1 cup chocolate chips
1 deep-dish refrigerated pie shell
Foil

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Dissolve the sugar, corn syrup, and butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Let cool slightly. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, bourbon, vanilla, and salt. Then add the sugar mixture and whisk it all until combined. Spread the pecans and chocolate chips in the bottom of the pie shell. Pour the mixture over it. Make a foil shield for the pie crust (Cut a square of foil. Fold in half. Fold in half again. Cut it so that, when you unfold it, there will be a pie-sized circle in the middle of the square.) Put in the oven and cook for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Fudge
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 small (5 oz.) can of evaporated milk
1 bag (12 oz.) of chocolate chips
1 jar of Kraft marshmallow cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(Nuts are optional)
Candy thermometer

Combine sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir continously. Keep stirring until mixture reaches 234 degrees on the candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Stir in marshmallow cream, chocolate chips, and vanilla until everything is melted and combined. Pour into a foil-lined 9x13 dish. Allow to set. Turn out onto wax paper and cut into very small pieces. It should be noted that this is the exact recipe on the back of the Kraft marshmallow cream jar. Everyone always acts like it's my secret recipe, but it's really not.

So, there you have it. Those are the dishes I make that everyone always wants. Enjoy!

Greetings readers! While everybody else is in the kitchen getting ready for (I'm glad I'm not a) Turkey Day, I'm busy making some minor improvements to our website that will hopefully get our lazy bums blogging a bit more. I also added a feature that tells you which one of us wrote each entry. This accomplishes two things: (1) We no longer have to attempt to write in first person plural, which is a pain, and (2) if one of us gets really lazy and stops posting, you'll know who to bug about it.

Those are the improvements, now I have to apologize for the photo gallery. I know its a pain, I'm sorry. Its a pain for us to update too. I am still looking into other options. If it makes up for it, I promise that once we get back we will have a nice downloadable slideshow and we might even be able to send out CDs or DVDs if people really want the pictures. Please be aware that since about early october we've been uploading 5 megapixel images to the website, so you can download them and get prints made if you like, to get the full size images, keep clicking on the image until it open in its own window

Okay, we really should put in more effort on updating this blog. Here's an update: From Utah, we went to Texas, did a bunch of stuff, blah, blah, blah, and then went straight to Heather's parents in Raleigh. And now we are in northern Virginia at least through Thanksgiving weekend. In December, we will finally leave the country. First, we attack the UK. Our only firm plans thus far are to be in Edinburgh, Scotland from December 30 to January 2 for Hogmanay. Should be fun.

Anyway, we might not be the best bloggers, but we did put some effort into updating the photo gallery. So, check out the most recently added albums:

Yosemite NP
Death Valley NP
Zion NP
Bryce NP
Arches NP
Capitol Reef NP
Hearst Castle
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Winchester House
Big Sur
Vegas, etc.
Moab
Monument Valley
Antelope Canyon
San Francisco

Also, Serenity is for sale. Please buy it. Please.

Now, enjoy this picture of Matt portraying a flying squirrel:

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we are currently in the southern Utah area. Since the San Francisco post, we have visited Monterey Bay, Big Sur, Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Zion National Park, and Bryce National Park. Today, we are off to see Capitol Reef National Park on our way to Arches and Canyonlands. We really hope to get to work updating pictures and writing more about our adventures in all of these places, but Internet service is spotty and slow, so bear with us. Thanks for your comments and e-mails. It was great to hear from everyone. Keep them coming!

I guess you can officially count us among the retired old folks, because we have gone and bought ourselves a Motor Home, a Recreational Vehicle, a Winnebago. She is a used 1995 Winnebago Rialta that we bought from a lovely couple in Washington state. We named her Serenity, because she kind of looks like a tiny spaceship and we are huge dorks.

Like a toddler just learning to walk, Serenity has been testing our limits. But a leaky shower, exploding kitchen sink, finicky sewer hose, and the occasional engine overheating haven't slowed us down. Well, actually, they have slowed us down, but they haven't stopped us. And that's what's important.

It's been nice sleeping in the same bed (surprisingly comfortable converted dinette area) every night. And we are saving a ton of money on food (we try to eat what we have stocked in Serenity as much as we can). And you can't beat the savings of an RV park over a motel. We have spent as little as $15 to park overnight. Motels were costing us at least $80 a night.

So far, Serenity has taken us from Portland to Astoria, Oregon for a 20th Anniversary screening of The Goonies, where everyone was forced to perform the Truffle Shuffle on videotape that was shown before the movie. We were rewarded with Baby Ruth bars. Corey ("Yeah? Well, this was my wish, my dream. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking 'em all back.") Feldman was in attendance. He's a huge dork, by the way. So far, it's the highlight of Heather's trip. I wonder whether anything can top that.

From Astoria, Serenity took us down Highway 101 along the Oregon coast. She seems to like the windy roads, as long as there aren't too many steep hills (see: overheating, above). We visited Redwood National and State Parks and the Trees of Mystery, which has a gondola that takes you way up into the trees. We pretty much found ourselves walking and driving around saying, "Wow, that's a really big tree."

We are now in the vicinity of San Francisco, after covering many curvy miles of Highway 1 in northern California yesterday. We have spent the past couple of nights in Serenity backed right up to the edge of oceanside cliffs, so we've been keeping our fingers crossed that there won't be any earthquakes while we are in town. We will be exploring the city for a couple of days before heading further down Highway 1.

The South North Garden (14 Sol Duc Way) in Forks, Washington has no roasted ducks in the windows. Which, for me at least, is normally a sign to find another Chinese restaurant. We had gotten a glowing recommendation from the innkeeper at the B&B we were staying at, so we decided to overlook the lack of crispy duck bodies and get a table. There are no eggrolls on the menu. There is no Lo Mein on the menu. I've seen the roast pork and its not pretty. Our waitress arrives and plunks down the shiny stainless steel teapot that begins to melt through the table. The tea is amazing -- so their specialty must be beverages, I order a Mai Tai. Our waitress gives us a minute to look over the menu, and we can't seem to agree on anything.

When she returns, we ask for a recommendation, and she asks hesitantly, "do you like spicy food?" An affirmative answer from us, perks her up considerably. "Oh well, we're a Schezuan restaurant, get the Schezuan combo." She tells us this at the same moment I take the first sip of my Mai Tai, my mood improves quite significantly. It all begins to make sense, spicy food requires optimal beverage quality, and why bother roasting ducks for window dressing if nobody is going to order them? We order the Schezuan combo, and shorlty thereafter our Hot and Sour Soup arrives. Which is really good. The next course is Spring Rolls and Chinese Roast Pork. The Spring Rolls are greasy, and the Chinese Roast Pork is dry and is served with ketchup, sesame seeds, and that insane chinese retaurant mustard that can kill small animals. These items are highly marginal. But it doesn't really matter because the Hunan Chicken, Mongolian Beef, and Twice-Cooked Pork show up just as we take the first bites of the second course. Drink more tea, continue eating.

I have never really liked Hunan Chicken, but this is pretty good. The Mongolian Beef is pretty much mind blowing, the beef is sliced thin and not chewy, but its not greasy either. The Twice Cooked pork is the best I've ever had, made with real chinese cabbage. Drink more tea, continue eating.

Of the six days we were in the Olympic Penninsula, we ate four meals at the South North Garden. We had the Hot and Sour Soup and the Mongolian Beef several more times, but we also ate the foil-wrapped chicken, pot stickers, General Tso's Chicken, Schezuan Beef, Moo Shoo Vegetables, Ginger Pork, and lot more tea. Every meal we had we ordered a refill of our teapot, which I have never ever done before at a chinese restaurant. And at the end of each meal when the waitress came around to provide us with takeout boxes, we had nothing with which to fill them.

Day one: Clouds. Actually the low cloud level was very pretty in the forested and low lying alpine meadow areas, but it made trying to get a look a Mount Rainier a bit of a waste of time. So we visited the Paradise Lodge, ate Buffalo meatloaf, and returned to our cabin for a hot tub soak.

Day two: On day two, Heather wisely rested her ankles while I did a 5 mile loop trail that goes about half way up the south side of Mt. Rainier. The elevation gain over the first two miles was really rough, but the pictures I got were worth it. After I had gone about a mile, I realized for many years now I had been relying on what I dubbed "residual athleticism", which I was thankful for, but it also made me feel really old. This would have been a much easier hike just a few years ago.

Our trip to Mount St. Helens mostly involved the lava tubes known as the Ape Caves on the NW side of the volcano. The upper and lower Ape Caves are basically lava tubes turned tourist attraction. The lower cave is the easier of the two hikes and we did this one first. Thankfully, the ranger station at the entrance rented Coleman lanterns or we would have seen a lot less during our out and back hike through the tunnel. Even with the lanterns, it doesn't look like much more than a tube bored through the rock. Walking through a lava tube is still a bit of a creepy experience even if the scenery isn't spectacular. One gets a strange sensation of geologic insignificance reinforced by the fact that you're in an enclosed space that once was a conduit for molten rock.

The upper cave is a bit more interesting, if for no other reason than it is significantly more difficult to get through. The upper cave "experience" is basically a scramble over large mounds of obsidian and pumice boulders for several hours in complete darkness. We actually joined up with another couple that had just moved to Portland from Washington, DC, so we had lots to talk about as we climbed over endless piles of rock. At one point we all turned off our headlamps and lantern and we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces, even with said hands squashed up against our noses. The cave picture in the photo gallery is one of us in the one "skylight" in the upper cave, through which the forest above taunts the bruised, and by this point, claustrophobic hikers down below.

Climbing out of the upper cave felt like quite an accomplishment, though our swollen ankles left us unable to do more than stroll less than a half mile into Lava Canyon the next day. On the bright side, by not doing the six-mile loop trail, we were able to visit the Johnston Ridge Observation Station and then make it all the way to Mount Rainier's gateway town where we secured the last available bed in town. Had we hiked Lava Canyon, who knows what sleepless perils would have befallen us under Rainier's ominous gaze.

It seems that everybody else with a travel journal website posts their packing list on their web page (and who am I to break a tradition?) so the following is what goes into my snail shell, and the make and model thereof, while I'm on the road.

Backpack: Gregory Z-Pack - 58 liters, 3550 cu. in.

"Technical Clothing":
Marmot Oracle Jacket
LL Cool Bean hooded zip fleece
Mountain Hardwear waterproof full zip pants
Smart Wool long johns
Rash Guard

Clothes:
REI River shorts
Columbia ROC pants
Patagonia Hemp/Poly SS shirt
Patagonia Cotton/Poly LS shirt
Assorted t-shirts, undershirts, socks and boxers

Accessories:
Columbia wide brimmed hat
Tahitian Pareu
Belt
Boring polarized sunglasses (I didn't want to worry about a pair of Maui Jims, my usual shade)
Wool knit hat

Other:
DreamSack silk sleep sheet
Bag 'o' toiletries
First Need water purifier
2 nalgene bottles with Gription tops
1 Sterile surgical tool kit (don't worry, its not for operating on myself)
REI Flash ultralight daybag
Swiss Army traveler pocket knife
Safe Sea 30 spf sunblock/jellyfish protection (I hate jellyfish)
Rubber camp sink
1 Compression stuff sack for our laundry
1 unlocked GSM phone and charger.

We also have a digital camera along of course, but Heather is the photographer so she gets to carry all that junk.

I've had a mohawk for the last two weeks. Just this afternoon, I got a 'hawkectomy. I do not miss it.

Despite the handful of compliments I recieved on the three occasions that I actually decided to "style" it, the reward is not worth the price. Here are a few of the lessons I learned as a member of the mohawked citizenry.

1. Stubborn curls do not spike well.
2. In order to actually make it look like a mohawk, something called Hair Glue must be used.
3. Hair glue is hard to wash out.
4. An individual will have a tough time putting temporary color in the mohawk, and volunteers are hard to come by.

As those of you who have already visited our blog may have noticed, we haven't really written anything. We've managed to get a lot of pictures up, and have some more in the queue. I thought I would post a quick update of what has been going on with us since we moved to Portland, Oregon.

Once I got everything settled with the sale of our condo in Virginia, I joined Matt in Portland, where he was employed for three months. With that roadblock out of the way, we are off to travel around the world.

What to do now? All of our stuff is in storage in Portland, as well as both of our cars. We have a lease through August. First, we decided to drive my car across the country, timing the trip so that we could go to Meg & Ben's wedding in Connecticut, then Amanda & Doug's wedding in Virginia. We left May 20. As you will see in our photo gallery, we visited Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, and many other amazing places as we drove.

Ultimately, we handed over the keys to my car to my parents on June 19 (after exactly one month on the road) having put 6,000 miles on the car. We were fortunate to have the chance to spend some quality time with friends and family along the way. Some people we hadn't seen in a VERY long time. We flew back to Portland on June 21, and slept for about a week.

So, what's next. Well, this week we will finish getting the vaccinations we need to travel around the world. We have been hiking a lot and just generally enjoying what the Portland area has to offer (they don't call it Beervana for nothing!). We have some other hikes coming up. We aren't completely sure when we will be getting on the road again, proabably the last week of July. This time we will be taking the Jeep across the country, with stops at Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands in Utah, lots of Texas, New Orleans, and Florida (barring hurricanes). As is usually the case, everything is fluid in our world. Ultimately, we will be back in the DC area (probably some time in September), to sell the Jeep and fly out of the country.

Don't forget to check out the new pictures in the Photo Gallery

-Heather

We've yet to actually think of anything to write about, so we leave you to enjoy our photo gallery.