Around the World at Last, Part 2

I’ve been hiding from my blog lately. The time has come in our journey to write a wrap-up post about our trip around the world and I’m finding all kinds of ways to procrastinate. We’ve even managed to drag out what was supposed to be an 8-month journey around the world into a 9-month journey by hunkering down with my cousin Rex in Texas for 3 weeks - kinda like Bonnie and Clyde. Well, not really.

We left Australia’s sun-drenched beaches almost a full month ago on a flight to Los Angeles. Our original plan, made way back when we left home in June of last year, was to end our journey with a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. It sounded like a fitting way to finish the trip. We’d bookend our journey with two quintessential North American road trips - our drive across Canada from west to east at the start, and the drive from south to north along the PCH to wrap things up.

That was then. Now that the end of our journey is at hand, we’re realizing there’s more to focus on then ensuring our unforgettable trip reaches a romantic denouement. Lots more. Namely, finding an apartment, taking stock of our belongings, starting a job search, addressing all the details that need to be attended to when one moves to a new city, et cetera, et cetera. At the beginning of our trip, I wrote a short post about the seemingly countless items we needed to take care of in preparation for the start of our journey and I’m finding that the list of things to do at the end of our trip is equally as long. We've also decided it'll be easier to get down to business if we fly to central Canada - we'll have to wait to visit Big Sur and Napa Valley another time.

So what's next? Similar to how things went at the start of our journey, I’m finding we’re looking at a future that is pretty much a blank slate. Other than a few scarce details concerning the immediate future, I’m not sure how things are about to play out - a dubious circumstance that certainly has not escaped the attention of our parents. I can only make a few open-ended assumptions: that we’re about to encounter a high-level of uncertainty, that there will be a lot we’ll have to learn, that we’ll likely make mistakes, and that the possibilities are endless.

Come to think of it, it sounds like our journey isn’t ending at all! I think that sounds like a very promising beginning.

Anyhow, I’ve resolved to be more consistent with posting in the blog now that this next stage of our trip is about to begin. I think I’ll start with all the things I am looking forward to when we get off the road and unpack our bags. You’ll have to give me a moment to think about that one.* Stay tuned!

*Of course this could be construed as an excuse to procrastinate. Meh. Onward!

“Walker, there is no path, the path is made by walking.” - Antonio Machado