Pretirement

hi from london! as you know, the blog slowed to a crawl last year and then stopped altogether about six months ago. a lot’s happened, and it’s time i wrote it down.

at the last post, roxanne and i had just taken a boat trip from panama to colombia and were staying in cartagena, loving it and really excited about the continent that lay at our feet, waiting to be explored. we began with energy and enthusiasm, seeing medellin and bogota and some amazing small towns. it quickly became our favorite country. but despite the added energy, we found we were at a crossroads. the vast distances of this new continent were a shock for us. it takes something like sixteen hours on a freezing night bus to get from cartagena to bogota, for example. at that rate, we knew it would take over a year to complete even a modest tour of the continent. money wasn’t an issue – dollars and pounds go very far in the poor countries of the andes. we were both healthy and could easily find another year of things to see. but for one reason or another, we felt we had to get home to see the people we loved.

as with everything else, we decided to make an adventure out of our homecoming. we bought plane tickets from bogota to miami and from miami to seattle, where i began my trip. from there we would pick up my car and do a sightseeing drive across the US, camping along the way, and ending a month later in springfield to spend thanksgiving with my family. we planned the next three weeks to see the eastern US, looping back to chicago where roxanne would fly home in time for christmas with her family in london.

odds are i saw you on that trip. it was like a tour of my entire life and everyone i know.

seattle was great to come home to. thanks especially to andy for being our generous host and constant social director, and to gautam and divya for being good friends to us when we needed it most. it was good to see everyone there and feel right at home, if just for a few days!

we did have to leave, of course, because we had another adventure planned. my car, of course, was essential to the road trip, and after sitting unused for a year, it had some problems. the repairs were relatively minor but delayed us about six days. with every day of waiting we started to doubt a little more what we were about to do. we almost called off the whole trip a couple of times. so when the car was finally ready, we left the city immediately with the late afternoon sun already slipping toward the southern horizon. by the time we bought supplies, packed up the car, ate dinner, and got on the highway it was 9:00 and we still didn’t know where we would spend the night. it didn’t matter. i was prepared to set up the tent in a field an hour south of town if we had to, as long as it meant that we were on our way.

i’m sorry, i have to go to bed! it’s four in the morning here and i have a big day tomorrow and i’m going to try to get some sleep. i’ll write again very soon, i promise. i have so many stories left.
lots of love everybody!
your friend,
phil