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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.
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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.
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 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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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We were interviewed yesterday by a reporter for the Bend Bulletin, the local paper. They plan to run a little article about our upcoming travels. Alandra Johnson, the Family Reporter, came to the house to talk with us and our girls about our plans, thoughts, and hopes. It will be fun to see how it comes together in the newspaper. Now that our departure date is approaching, we are attracting a little more attention. (Update: Link to Bulletin Article)
Although I have not been posting to the blog or the main site an awful lot, I hope to keep everything more up to date while we are off on our adventures. At the moment, the focus has been on tying up all these loose ends. It seems as if the list is not getting any shorter, we think of and add things as quickly as we cross them off. That said, most of the bigger and more urgent things that the list started with are done; the things we are adding are more typically minutiae.
One of the larger components of our upcoming location independent lifestyle is the ability to make some sort of income from the road. Since the sale of our business, I have been working on this “big list” item: a mobile business model. Although we don’t need to replace our entire past salaries, some incoming cash flow is a necessity for us.
When looking for work, most people start by evaluating their existing skill set to find what is saleable within themselves and their past experience. We decided, instead, we should start with what we would really like to do and find a way to get there. On one hand, this meant we were on the beginning of a steep learning curve and also incredibly excited to be learning something completely new after two decades in the same place. On the other, it meant I had a few knocks coming.
And so, we bought camera equipment and software, and set out to become travel bloggers. I found myself wading through books about Dreamweaver and Photoshop. I spent hours on Lynda.com and now can look at a page of html code or JavaScript and not panic. I like the site I’ve managed to put together, mostly. Blogging did feel, however, much like sending my thoughts out into space. I loaded stories and even recorded a handful of podcasts of them. I built photo galleries of places I’d been. And, nothing. My message in a bottle, drifting away until it was lost from my sight, into the void. A couple of friends encouraged me, and a trickle of traffic started to come in via Google, and a few other bloggers, like Daniel from Two Go RTW, have mentioned us in their posts.
Twitter sucked me in and took a huge amount of my time this past year. Although it doesn’t really drive a lot of direct traffic to the site, it has provided connections that are very helpful. I was recently asked to write guest posts for Location Independent Parents about looking for online school options, and a Valentine’s Day piece for One Travel, (a blog site for Cheap Flights.) I was invited to become a featured blogger on Raveable. Another travel blogger tagged me to write a post of my favorite secret places as part of an online bloggers game. I’ll link to the blog posts as they are published.
I’ve joined both the Travel Bloggers Exchange and the Global Bloggers Network I was also asked to write a column in the regional newsletter of society of which I am a member. (My super secret handshake society…)
I recently was accepted by iStockphoto, although the process was so frustrating I don’t yet believe it was worth it. Granted, I am a relative newbie photographer. That said, I often used my own work in our marketing materials at the dude ranch, if we did not have what I was looking for in our library from the professionals. Some of them were my favorites. Having spent years managing our own marketing, apparently, does not give me understanding of what will sell. Anyway, ironically, one of the very photos I was accepted with was rejected when I tried to upload it, among others. I have a small handful loaded and the jury is still out as to whether it was worth the bother.
These wonderful ideas are not providing an income, though. They may be fun, and what I’d really like to be doing, but I also need checks to arrive from time to time. And so, I have been working freelance for clients, developing content for their web presence. Editing and writing materials for online use, helping them put together programs to use Twitter and Facebook as a marketing strategy, and monitoring their key terms and publicity online. I guess in some ways, it brings me full circle. Although I chose not to follow my previous work experience as a guide to my future earnings, necessity brought me back there anyway. At least I have found a way to take it on the road…
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I have been tagged by a blogger friend, and am to write about my three secret spots in the world. Places where my heart feels at home and where my mind wanders when I dream. There are many other settings that have written themselves onto my heart and jump to mind when I ask myself what experiences have been most special. A dark street in Kyoto lined with trees of cherry blossoms, illuminated so only the lampposts and flowers shine in the night. Diving through a forest of coral on the Great Mayan Reef, among brightly colored fish, octopus, and turtles. Watching bears in Glacier National Park. But, I think the answers to this question are more than a vivid memory of a single experience, rather about places I know well: the steady friends of the places in my life.  Oregon's Alvord Desert and Steens Mountain I love the vast empty space of Oregon’s Alvord Desert, unrolled into flatness below the giant fault block Steens Mountain. I suppose I love it because there is so much noise in my life, not just auditory, but also visual and kinetic noise. To use a term from art, the Alvord is my negative space, a place where my mind retreats to find calm.
The valley floor is stark and bare, the alkali clay surface cracked into jagged lines like an endless white-tile mosaic. All vegetation and rocks are held back, distant. The emptiness close by is broken only by that which we bring with us. In warmer weather, heat waves rise from the surface, distorting and then dissolving the edges of the flats and my companions if I wander too far from them. The experience is surreal, the white place in movies between life and death. Without the mountain peak visible above the shimmer, the world would disappear.
The surrounding valley is mostly void of trees, with the exception of willows and cottonwoods following the streams that flow from the higher elevations. Sagebrush spills over the land, and offers its scent in every breath. To the West, Steens Mountain presses abruptly to the sky, lifting 5500 feet above the dry lake bed. The mountains to the South, Southeast, and North are not as imposing, but complete a rim containing the void.
 The Lower Deschutes River, Oregon Three hundred miles north and west of the Alvord Desert, a ribbon of blue water has spent centuries sculpting a bed for itself into the volcanic earth. Its banks are a verdant green of grass and trees, a shock of color surrounded by muted desert tones. The contrast leaves little doubt that the Lower Deschutes River brings life, is life, in this place. The steady pull of gravity creates unending power in the water; restless to return to the sea and begin again its life giving cycle.
Herds of wild horses graze and run on the far bank, in the Warm Springs Reservation. High, open canyon walls rise with rolling rhythm, enclosing the life giving river in a valley of its own making. Open hillside grasslands dotted with pungent sagebrush and twisted juniper are broken by rock outcroppings and cliff bands.
They all come eventually, if you watch long enough; the wildlife of the canyon are sustained by the water. Skunks chase and play and river otters raise their families along the banks. Osprey return to their nest and hungry young with trout. Fly fishermen tempt steelhead and pull their leader from the trees that line the bank. White water rafters float by laughing and splashing each other with their paddles. Then quiet returns, and the river continues flowing, nurturing the lives it sustains.
 South end of Yaquina Head, where it meets Agate Beach
Oregon’s coastline is rugged sea cliffs and huge open beaches. The pounding Pacific Ocean rises and falls in tides, revealing and taking back vast stretches of sand and tide pools. At the base of Yaquina Head, a bluff of land stretching out from the shoreline, obstinate against the waves which crash endlessly against its cliffs, are rocks and pools exposed at low tide, filled with starfish and spiny urchins. Monolith boulders stand sentry, towering above the tidal pools. Washed clean of soil, seaweed clings to their bases and noisy rookeries of common murre crowd their tops.
The beach to the south of Yaquina Head sweeps down toward Newport, a tourist haven complete with a brew pub, wax museum, and shops selling plastic souvenirs and t-shirts. Tucked against the head on the north end, piles of driftwood logs like tumbled matchsticks rest against the cliffs, strewn where the ocean left them during high tide storms. My dogs and children run free on the beach, chasing the wind. At the end of the day, we climb the stairs back to our favorite condo at Starfish Point, and watch the sun slide down the sky and vanish into the Pacific.
~The Chain letter originated on : http://www.tripbase.com/blog/tripbase-blog-tag/
~I was tagged by Lisa Bergren, she wrote about places in Montana: http://theworldiscalling.com/2009/12/my-3-nw-montana-secrets/#more-1505
~Now I need to go look at the list to see who has already played, and tag 5 more people who have not… I’ll have to get back to this part. My family wants me to run off with them for a few hours.
Update… OK, I have found 5 travel bloggers who I don’t see on the Tripbase already-tagged list.
Travel And Travails – By Dee Andrews, who has just returned from a year living abroad with her family. “Find inspiration, share ideas, seek the unexpected, in traveling and in life.”
Family On Bikes By Nancy Sathre-Vogel, who is biking with her family from Alaska to Argentina. “When we reach the southernmost tip of South America, Davy and Daryl will become the new Guinness World Record holders as the youngest people to cycle the Pan-American Highway!” Oops. Just heard back from Nancy. I guess she’s already played. I must have missed her on the list. Here’s her post, anyway: Hidden Gems
Travel Sights With Lilliy By Lilliy K., also known as Fun Lilliy. She has lived in many places~ “Every trip adds to who I am in some way. I have been lucky to been able to see many cities and countries and would love to share all that with others that have the same passion.”
Globe Hoppers By the Anderson Family: “6 Continents – 88 Countries – 9 Iowans – 1 Family” How cool is that?
That Traveling Couple By Andrew and Elysia. A young, Australian couple living in Toronto, who love wandering. “we wanted … to share stories about our adventures and in doing that hopefully shed some light on some amazing places you too can visit! Plus we just LOVE everything about travel so this is just pure, unadulterated FUN for us”
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In the years that have passed since I lived with my Oma and went to school on Germany for a year and John spent his gap year after college vagabonding through Europe, things have changed on the visa front. Our tentative plan had us landing in Europe in February, and not leaving for Africa until the fall. Friends are coming out to see us off at the beginning of our trip and a few others are hoping to meet up with us in the summer. I had imagined us drifting south until late spring, and moving north as the temperatures of summer arrived.
In checking tourist visa information for the EU, however, I found that we’ll need to be much more mindful of where we go than I had thought. Instead of each country operating individually, much of the EU has joined a treaty that spells out how long people can stay, and lumps these countries all together in one experience. So, we arrive in late February, and can only stay in the Schengen Zone for 90 of the next 180 days, or until late August. Leaving and coming back does not re-start the clock, although time spent outside the zone does not count toward the 90 days. We’re using almost four weeks in France already, and hope to ski through March and into April.
This gives a real advantage, in my mind, to the non-Schengen countries, and we’ll opt for them when we can. If the ski season is still going (snow and weather permitting) we were thinking about moving over to Italy to try their slopes. All things equal, we’ll surely opt for Andorra instead. It’s a small, mountain kingdom between France and Spain in the Pyrenees, and they’re supposed to have great skiing.
After our fill of skiing, I’ve had Croatia on my mind, and maybe on down into Greece. John, on the other hand, has been talking about Spain quite a bit. In that Spain is Schengen and Croatia is not, I’m likely to win this one. Sorry, Spain. And for an extended rental, it’ll be Croatia’s coast with just a few days in Schengen Greece.
It reminds me of the fallout and impact on our dude ranch business when the US made it more difficult for people from the UK to come to America on a tourist visa. They could not just show up anymore, but rather had to go through a visa application process at a US consulate. Not very welcoming for tourists, and certainly shrank the numbers of visitors from one of our biggest markets.
I guess there must not be that many Americans who want to spend extended time in the EU. If there were, the tourism boards for these countries would pressure their governments not to join, or to change the policies. But, for this traveling family, it will send us to other destinations.
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~GBN~
~Raveable~
