Itinerary of “The Big Trip”

Where are you going? I’ve answered this question so often recently that I kind of go on auto-pilot when I answer.  I can’t really hear the words I’m saying any more.  As I write this, maybe I will again feel the excitement of what it is we’re embarking on.

July 29 – kids leave Boulder to hang with my parents in California while Will and I finalize all the details.  We think it would be emotionally difficult for them to actually watch the movers dismantle our home, sell our cars, deliver the Persimmon the Pug and Hopper the bunny to their year-long babysitters.  That would be hard.  And writing this, it feels a bit more hard.

August 1 – New tenants move into our home.

August 2 – Will and I fly to meet the kids in San Francisco.

August 5 – One way flight from SF – Kathmandu, Nepal

August / September – Nepal will probably be a time for connecting with our Nepali friends, service work, trekking and homeschooling. Time in Kathmandu with Pasang’s family; up to Tumbuk to work on the finishing touches of the monastery and stay with Pasang’s grandparents; over to Kumjung, to see the largest Sherpa village in the Solo Khumbu area and stay with Pasang’s other grandmother.  Our time in Nepal will end with a visit from my dad and step-mom in Kathmandu with some chill time in Pokhara.

October – China!  We have hired a guide from Where There Be Dragons to lead us through China as a freelancer.  I’ve been to China enough to know that it’s tough to get off the beaten path if you don’t speak the language.  Our guide Julie is a doctoral student doing research and will do some mini-lessons, teach us some Mandarin and be there to answer ALL the impending questions.  We hope to spend time in Lucy’s orphanage and do some digging to find her birthparents, hike on a remote section of the Wall, follow the Yangste from tributaries to Shanghai and visit a Panda sanctuary.  Phew!

November – New Zealand South Island.  This part is not structured at all.  We will pick up a Sprinter van for three weeks and tour the South Island.  Milford Sound is high on the list as is chillin’ on the beaches and hiking.

December / January – Wellington, New Zealand.  We will stay put for two months in this very cosmopolitan capital city at the southern tip of the North Island.  Our Air BnB is booked and we are walking distance to a public library, swimming pool and longboard surfing beach.  We hope to find some easy routines here and get lots of our homeschooling time in.  I may be ready for a good latte and yoga classes.

February – Thailand.  I am so very excited to return to Thailand!  I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Southern Thailand and later worked as a guide all over Thailand and Laos with Where There Be Dragons.  There are so many people I want to see and places to go that I wonder if one month is enough.  Top on the list:  my school in Krabi and visit old friends all around the area (Maybe my kids could be a Thai student for a day?); the Elephant sanctuary in the north, biking around the ruins at Sukhothai, Bangkok’s temples and canals and hopefully connect with old students, Luang Prabang (actually that’s Laos) and Angkor Wat (actually, that’s Cambodia).    Yeah, maybe that’s more than a month…

March / April – Costa Rica. We plan to ground ourselves in Nosara for two months.  Ideally, we will become fluent in Spanish, howler monkey and surfing.  There’s a yoga center down the road.  Bracing myself for the changes since I was there last in 1992.  Lots of friends and family want to come visit while we’re down there.

May / June – Florence, Italy area: this is quite amorphous, no homework done yet.  Here’s my pie-in-the-sky hope: a nice suburban house walking distance to a cappuccino and yoga, near a public transit line that can take us to downtown Florence in less than an hour.  Our yet un-named, town would ideally have a swim team for the kids, so they can learn the Italian version of “Let’s do a set of 100 IM’s on the clock…”  I’m sure it would sound better in Italian.  We might hire a local college student to teach our kids about the art, architecture, some language and even be Suzuki-trained to give lessons on their instruments. Is that too much to ask of the universe?

July – Wild card.  Option 1: Maybe we head up north to cool off and practice our German in Austria or Switzerland.  Option 2: Maybe we go WAY north to Moscow (assuming they still let Americans visit there by then) and book a ticket on the Trans-Mongolian Express.  This two week train trip will be the ultimate geography and cultural lesson by crossing out of geographical Europe, onto the Russian Steppe, daytrip to Lake Baykal, continuing through the Mongolian Plains and ending in Beijing.  (This is on the top of my Bucket List, but just maybe the family will still have enough juice to do it.) Option 3: Head home to The States and stay in the cabin in Tahoe visiting with the family and waiting patiently to move back into our Boulder house.

August – Boulder Reentry

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Travel Immunizations and Momma-Fear

Shots!  And Momma-fear

It’s a hotly polarizing parental topic: vaccinations.  It’s one thing to make the decision against vaccinations while sheltered within the US, or even to forego them for overseas travel as an educated adult.  But it’s a weighty responsibility to make those decisions for your innocent kids.  Ultimately, my decision to go ahead with the shots was because I would never forgive myself if they got any one of those preventable diseases of the developing world.  All travel vaccinations are legally optional these days and the CDC recommendations are extremely conservative so we had to use our best judgment and weigh it with our past travel know-how.

Oh my goodness, I didn’t realize until late June that shots are no joke.  We spent $4500 on shots for our family of five and that’s with the intentional foregoing of malaria meds.  None of this is covered by insurance because it’s elective travel.  Three shots for each of us, but different ones for Will and me.  I’m one of the few moms in North Boulder who vaccinated her kids, so the kids only had to add Typhoid, Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis.  The rabies vaccine is crazy-expensive but 40% of travel rabies cases are for kids 15 and under.  I think Americans smell especially foreign and they go for the littlest legs.  (The vaccine is good for life, so thanks to Peace Corps, I’m off the hook.) The process takes three visits for Rabies and two for Japanese Encephalitis.  We had sore arms, some headaches and the first of our adventure stories to bond us.

Getting “stuck” in the private travel clinic, the kids were great and our Irish nurse was jolly but the whole experience gave me pause.  Deciding to forego malaria means that we need to be vigilant with mosquito protection in Thailand and maybe helps make the decision not to go to southern Nepal.  I started to remember all the random fevers and rashes that were just part of living in Asia, but my anxiety started ramping up when I thought about their little bodies.  And I started to plan the med kit I will take with me and wondering what Where There Be Dragons puts in their kits these days.

Travel Immunizations

But fear came up.  And fear is a big deal as a mom – way bigger than as a single, young traveler.  It’s primal and makes you want to put your “tweeners” back in a five-point harness with a helmet. If Momma-fear and I will be traveling together soon, we need to find that healthy balance between “informed-adventure-mom” and “Nervous-Nelly-mom”.  I mean really, we’re talking about the threat of a nuclear war with North Korea, a kid from Boulder got a shark bite standing in the water in Florida last spring – what is safety anyway?  Fear is not going to drive this bus.

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Wading Through the World’s Biggest Vinyl Market in Utrecht

Although women account for about half of all recording artists in the world, we are vastly outnumbered when it comes to record buyers. At least, this is the impression I got staring at an ocean of men dressed in dark colours, jeans and hoodies at the Mega Record Show, the world’s largest record fair, in Utrecht, Netherlands, in November 2016. In my nonscientific survey of the 41,000-square-foot fair, women seemed to represent maybe 10 percent of this ocean.

These overwhelmingly obsessive dudes, sometimes without any other outlet for their love, would turn out to be some of the most passionate men I’d ever meet.

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Disneyland: The Best And Worst Of America

It’s easy to find the over-the-topness of Disneyland. It’s just too much: the carbon footprint, the waste, the fluorescent soda, the rampant consumerism, the crowds, the obese scooter riders. But then there’s also these six reasons to push past your stereotypes:

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