Our Adventures, Our Travels, Our Life

The date of departure, December 13, is approaching quickly. In the mean time we are learning more about permaculture, which is, for most intents and purposes, a method of farming that we want to implement on our homestead. Mags has been increasing her knowledge of her women’s health specialty in physical therapy, most recently at a class in Portland.

As we come closer to departure our plans are falling slightly more into place. I (Stu) had an interview with an organization that is doing relief work in Haiti. They seemed interested in my IT skill set, but seemed to want more than the month that we are committing to Haiti. Also, they don’t generally directly employ volunteer physical therapists. And, since the two of us are a package deal, we will see if they still want us. I have written to two other volunteer organizations and also reached out through Couch Surfing, with nothing coming out of any of that so far. So, if the organization above doesn’t work out, we are considering volunteering in some other country instead. There are certainly plenty of places to go, and plenty of people that can use our skills!

The one plan that is absolutely set in stone is that we are taking the train cross-country again this year, although this time with a several-day stop in Austin, Texas to visit friends there. Our destination is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is close to my brother’s family, who we will be visiting for the holidays.

Our last days of work are on or about October 13, now. We’re really looking forward to having some down time and planning time in San Francisco without having to worry about going to work.

Onward!

Welcome to the stuandmags.net blog! We’ll use this blog in the next year and a half, or more, to update you on all of our adventures and travels. Here’s the basic plan as it stands now, as copied from Stu’s blog, fourmajor.com:

A while ago I tweeted that Mags and I would be quitting our jobs in October. Some people were confused as to what was going on, and I promised a full blog post. Here it is!

Our last day of work will be October 21. For about two months following that, we will focus on organizing our stuff and also relaxing in San Francisco. I’ve lived here for six years and haven’t had much non-job time to just experience the city. I’m very much looking forward to this 🙂

In late December, we will go by train to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to visit family for the holidays. Around New Years we will go by train and bus to Las Vegas. Mags will be teaching for about a week while I’ll be holed up a few hours away getting my exercise and meditation on for a few weeks. Mags will join me when she is done with her teaching gig.

After this is when the real adventure starts. What follows is not set in stone, but it is the general plan. It is inevitable that we will add some things, shift some things, and subtract some things.

After Vegas, we will go to Haiti to volunteer at a refugee camp for about a month. We’ll both use our professional skills and also probably do some grunt work. They’re still suffering a lot down there over a year after the earthquake.

From there we want to go to other parts of Latin America: Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil. Probably not all of those. And we don’t really know yet what we’ll do in those places.

Then we will go to Taiwan to learn Mandarin from Mags’s aunt and visit family for two-three months, followed by a couple of weeks vacation in Japan.

In the fall we will go bike touring, with camping and couch surfing, in the Northeast US for about a month. At an undetermined time of the year, we will travel the US by train, bus, hitchhiking, etc, to explore where we want to set down roots.

There will also be a couple months of unplanned time to allow for some degree of spontaneity.

What comes next, you ask? Well, we want to have a baby or babies. We want to move somewhere that we can afford some land (read: not San Francisco proper). We want to live with others in some fashion. I want to work with my hands and not often in an office. That’ll probably take the form of farming or bicycle mechanics. We want to start a home business centered around healing and well-being – physical therapy, massage, exercise, etc.

So, lots of plans. We’ve been thinking about all of this for a long time and we’re excited to get started. The nice thing is that we’re close enough now that we can actually begin to make concrete plans, buy tickets, decide things, etc.

And, just another reminder, all of the above isn’t set in stone 🙂 For about 75% of it I wanted to preface it with probably or possibly. But I thought reading that over and over would get tiresome 🙂

So, currently we’re still working and living our current lives. But at the same time, we’re thinking about and preparing for the future. This mostly consists of travel, planning, and learning. The posts that you’ll see in the next year will mostly be about our travels and learning, and how these relate to the future.