In the­ory, drop­ping every­thing and going off on a trip for a year sounds straight for­ward, almost effort­less. A lot like throw­ing the garbage, I guess.

In real­ity, or at least our real­ity, in which we have to suck out all the value we have out of every­thing we have, with all the time we have, its not quite so effort­less. It involves a lot of boxes, a lot of dig­ging, a lot of sort­ing, a lot of think­ing in big puz­zles. Then these puz­zles have lit­tle puz­zles in them that need sort­ing and make the job even less light and easy.

The big job of sort­ing out the garage con­tents has started. There are a lot of boxes with all sort of things in them and as much as we have avoided meet­ing them in per­son in the last few years, now its time for face to face, heart to heart. It goes a bit like: You go…you stay…go…OUT!…mmm…dunno…Oooooh, I for­got about this…

A lot of liq­ui­da­tion needs to hap­pen, before our trip can become a real­ity. There is a lot of work ahead of us and even if we dont end up going, it will feel so good to have this out of our heads.

Digging through things bring up mem­o­ries as well, which is the nice part about this whole mess. There IS one, thank­fully. If we make money, that will be the sec­ond one. But for now, spray­ing refresher on the mem­ory banks is quite enjoyable.

Like the pipe that marks the start for our love story:

Or the top of the cake for my 30^th birth­day. The best birth­day ever, orga­niz­ing lov­ingly, thought­fully and per­fectly by Mr.Blab. I had com­pletely for­got­ten that I save it, so I had a good pause and re-winded the events through my mind as I stared at the con­tents of the box.

The girls have started a pile in their room that will go to rais­ing money. I have pre­pared the train table to be ready for a new home and hope my friend is still inter­ested. There are other boxes fill­ing up with unused toys, clothes and what­ever really.

Its not only money rais­ing activ­ity though. Its money sav­ing as well.

If we go, we will need to store the left over fur­ni­ture and stuff until we come back. This costs money and more than you would be think­ing. Obviously, the more one stores, the more one pays.

And in the end it turns out that what­ever we decide to keep: first of all, will not make us any money, and sec­ond of all, will cost us money. It will have to be well worth it. Which is actu­ally a very nice way of look­ing at the stuff that sur­rounds us. I so hope in the end we fin­ish this crazy process with a small pile of things we truly care for.

This is where we are at the moment. There are a few things going on in the back­ground too — like search­ing for stor­age, sort­ing out shares and taxes, look­ing for con­nec­tions around the world. I am also still try­ing to fin­ish up the update of this blog, the one that has been long awaited by me , because oth­er­wise it will have to wait even longer. I am most cer­tainly not bury­ing myself in codes and blog deci­sions while on a trip. Not by choice, anyway.

The dream is still alive. Lets see what will hap­pen to it.

Mr.Blab is a col­lec­tor, as he likes to call it. I call it other things. One of the items he has accu­mu­lated over the years are travel guides, cause we havent just sud­denly real­ized our love of travel, the bug has been planted long ago, and the itch has been scratched before. We have been dream­ing of an extended trip for years. The long term plan was to make a full run around Europe with a motor-home once we retire. South America has been a dream des­ti­na­tion for both of us, as nei­ther of us has been there. And of course the full fam­ily around the world trip is not a new idea, although up until now it was not more than a day dream.

Finally, those guides are needed and now they are piled on the office floor and just about every­where around the house. And if that was not enough, we have bor­rowed numer­ous books from the libraries around us — some infor­ma­tive, oth­ers of adven­tures peo­ple have taken. There is so much infor­ma­tion that needs to be processed, I have caught myself a few times over­whelmed and won­der­ing how we can put it all together in any sort of usable format.

For exam­ple, the ini­tial idea was to buy a motorhome in Europe and save a bunch of money over the months on acco­mo­da­tion and trans­port. Then sell it in the end. But then more infor­ma­tion comes to light and sud­denly that plan doesnt seem as good or straight for­ward as it did yes­ter­day. Should we get rail­passes? Should we take the bus? Where do we want to go, or much harder ques­tion to answer, where dont we mind not going? Because as long as a year sounds, the world is rather big and we will barely man­age to scrape the sur­face of it. On top of that, when you are try­ing to do it as cheaply as pos­si­ble, the plans need to be flex­i­ble and realistic.

The plane tick­ets? Oh, the plane tick­ets. This one is prov­ing a tough one too.  I thought it will be a good idea to buy the tick­ets from Asia, make our way to there our­selves and skip a con­ti­nent on the RTW ticket — cause you pay accord­ing to how many of them you want to visit. After some search, we were unpleas­antly sur­prised that tick­ets from Asia are much more expen­sive, so this money sav­ing trick was not going to be sav­ing us any money. Boo-hoo.

Next was to cut off South America and just make our way down there when we reach North America. Maybe a short flight from Miami down to Venezuela. Maybe drive down there (not a good idea). Then bus around the con­ti­nent as needed. And this way if we run out of time by the time we get there, we can skip — I cant believe I am say­ing this — South America, and save it for a dif­fer­ent trip. This is still hang­ing unde­cided too.

The best part of this process so far has been…you! After I put out my plea for free acco­mo­da­tion any­where around the world, your responses and open wel­com­ing arms have warmed my soul more than I would have thought. Thank you very much from the bot­tom of my melted heart!

The girls have had fun putting green dots for every open door we have on the map. And other col­ored ones for places they want to go. Oh, and we have a brand new map, of course. Wipe-able, so we can wipe the excited draw­ings of the kids be flex­i­ble.

This is a very small frac­tion of the stuff that is hap­pen­ing in our house at the moment. Its excit­ing, its strange, its scary at times, its so won­der­ful that seems unimag­in­able and impos­si­ble. I won­der where this process will end?

Until then I have a lot of green dots on a wipeable map to warm me up on cold nights like tonight.

Little B became 3 years old.

I was brows­ing through some old pho­tos and try­ing to sort them out, so you get a bit of a taste of my rem­i­nis­cent feelings.

Just as this year, we went down south to Denmark to cel­e­brate her birth­day. I was freshly preg­nant with a cer­tain Popcorn.

We stopped at the fairy parks along the way..

Back then we stayed at this won­der­ful lit­tle place that was built, carved and hand crafted  by arti­sans from the area. Run by a hip­pie look­ing cou­ple that were fun to chat to, the spot was per­fect for us. In the morn­ing through the blinds the girls would spot the kan­ga­roos  in the yard and then run around and laugh at the lit­tle poo deposits in the grass.

We did the walk through the woods, which was magnificent.

One could even look out to the world from the giant trees.

We had a lot of tast­ing plates from the farms around the place. In gen­eral there was a lot of eat­ing hap­pen­ing as the weather was not great, so we needed fre­quent stops to warm up or fuel up for the con­stant shiver of our bodies.

Running around did the same job for some.

Our most favorite beach in the whole world was freez­ing, cold and mis­er­able. Still, stub­bornly we went there and had fun in spite of it all. A bit of jump­ing here, a bit of run­ning there, some splash­ing, rock climb­ing and before we knew it the girls were soak­ing wet piles of sandy mess. But they were lov­ing it. Me? I was half frozen, I think.

The party get away was a suc­cess, as is every trip down south.

I love this pic­ture of an exhausted three year old on her way back home.

____

As you guessed it, I got noth­ing sorted out. It always hap­pens that way. I have great inten­tions, I dive in and then float away on a visual mem­ory cur­rent until its too late to be pro­duc­tive and I post­pone the whole thing for some other time.

At least this time you can join in for some of the jour­ney back in time.

All great things come to an end…they say. I dont like this say­ing, its so pes­simistic and grumpy, like a sour puss on top of a warm new­born kit­ten. Get off!

But our trip did have to come to an end, but not before we took a drive the long way home. We felt like sight seeing.

The forests in the begin­ning of the drive were so beau­ti­ful and a nice change from the dry­ness of the city.

And there was a lot of it. Green and luscious.

Until we came half way and stopped for a break. We were look­ing for a nice water­front place or park to rest and let the kids run wild, instead we stum­bled on a fancy water­front new devel­op­ment. But it had cof­fee, ice drinks and water. We enjoyed..

Coffee…

The Caramel loved the dec­o­ra­tions and the ceil­ing. I think he was still a bit woozy from the long trip and being strapped down like a mad­man. I think he was smelling free­dom and air..

We waited for our refreshments..

And went out­side and sat on the grass.

Where we drank.

We looked at the scenery.

And Caramel.

Caramel?

He lost it. He was run­ning circles.

The poor boy had a bunch of energy to waste and he sure did.

Unfortunately for him, the car seat was not far away and after we had stretched some limbs and rubbed skin on the grass we were back in the vehi­cle, now rub­bing tires on the road.

The views were now not that inspir­ing and I was get­ting bored.

Freeway.

A truck. A car. A truck. A car. A car. A car…

Yawn.

So did some play­ing with under­ex­pos­ing the sunny day for dra­matic effect.

Hey, those clouds are not half bad.

Nah.

The low point was reached when I started inten­tion­ally tak­ing out of focus pictures.

Yep.

But home felt good.

Its very impor­tant to clean and tidy your house before going on a trip. It makes com­ing back home so much bet­ter. Otherwise one feels like com­ing back to the every­day chores, instead of back to com­fort and warmth.

And this is the end of this trip.

Now I want another.

And another.

Still alive, just man­aged to exceed our down­load limit for the month and we are now stuck with a sloooow con­nec­tion. Which is kind of good, because my com­puter is gath­er­ing dust for real now, but so is my blog unfor­tu­nately. I still love you though, k!

____________

So, if you remem­ber, we left this story of ours with me com­fort­ably in bed, cov­ered in soft sheets, hop­ing that the morn­ing will bring a nice sunny day for us to enjoy the won­der­ful beach around the cor­ner. The best beach, really.

In the morn­ing we were cau­tious. The sky was look­ing clear, there was sun, the hope was alive. Usually we go to the beach in the after­noon and spend our time there until sun­set. But today we scram­bled our things and flew out try­ing to catch the nice weather.

Back on the road, with kids in the back…

All was look­ing fine.

We might just make it…

Fast down the stairs.

Gasp..

Cough…

AWE…

Its mag­nif­i­cent.

We made it. Its sunny, warm and we are here.

Feel it?

How about the soft fine sand between your toes?

Or between your bum cheeks?

Or both?

We have trav­eled, Mr.Blab and I. We have.

But there are very few other places like this one. And since we choose to come out­side of the offi­cial hol­i­days, we also have the place pretty much to our lovely selves.

It does not get any better.

Well, maybe if you have one of those nakid man with you and you rub his soft sandy bum from time to time…

The girls were happy too.

Off doing their thing, explor­ing, cart­wheel­ing, jump­ing, splash­ing and so on.

They went off with dad to walk along the big rocks. Then I took Miss Fab and did the same.

We looked through some rock pools and peo­ple who were fish­ing amongst the waves.

And around lunch time it was time to get some food in our bel­lies, so we drove to town. There we saw the future, or what Caramel Popcorn will look like…or what Caramel Popcorn will look like accord­ing to Mr.Blab.

I dont know, I am not so sure.

We ordered some fresh Vietnamese rolls from this place, the one with the big round lamps.

Then we headed across the road to the park that was call­ing our names.

„Come to meeee…looook…me green…me good…me fresh…me have a bench…”

We had no option, so we went.

At first the man was mel­low, but then he saw the birds.

Then we sent the big girl after to chase him chas­ing birds.

He liked it.

But if you thought this was cute (and you bet­ter, cause oth­er­wise you will be thrown out of my blog!)
wait till you see the lat­est trick this lit­tle fella has come up with.

Ready?

„Are you cute, Dodman?”

Answer:

I have no idea where this came from, but we are lap­ping it up like thirsty camels in a dry spell desert.

Then some more dri­ving around through the scenery and back roads.

And for din­ner we used the bounty from our mid­dle of the road unmanned farm shop from the day before.

Here is what hap­pened to our kipfler pota­toes, corn and cucumbers.

Lovely day really.

But just in case you for­got what it was all for, here is a pic­ture for farewell.
(Sorry if you are in the north­ern hemisphere)

Love it, love it, love it.

Accomplished and snug­gled up in the bed with the soft sheets
with  slightly tin­gling burned shoul­ders
– yours truly.

I slept really good, although our bed was just a queen and we didnt have much room to play with. On the other hand the sheets were soft, really soft, and the pil­lows were very com­fort­able. Or maybe it was the fact that the tem­per­a­ture was cool and after all those warm nights back home, just felt right.

We were awoken by the excited girls, one of them which was a birth­day girl. The gifts were all brought out and ready for dis­mem­ber­ing open­ing. Lots of jump­ing around, torn up paper and it was done in sec­onds. Then the new scooter was taken for a ride and the rest of the gifts up to the kids room and all around really.

Quick break­fast and some out­side fun con­cluded the early morning.

This is where the lala land world ended up too.

The weather pretty much sucked.

There was not a sin­gle blue sky to be seen and it was raining.

But we had orders to go to the pet­ting zoo and noth­ing was going to stop us. Nothing.
So we jumped in the car and took off.

Being in a rainy area has its advan­tages, like green sur­round­ings and beau­ti­ful lush trees.

We had to come to a sud­den stop at the sight of some fresh pro­duce on the side of the road.

We turned and had a bet­ter look.

Right in the mid­dle of the small side road, with not a soul in sight, was this lit­tle set up:

Produce — car­rots, cucum­bers, pota­toes, corn et cetera, et cetera.

Prices — yep.

People to serve — none.

We grabbed some things and paid.

Yep.

Right where it said so.

Ok, dont you just love it?

But I couldnt stay and enjoy this exam­ple of human good­ness. We had places to go.

Animals to pat.

The friend­ship bracelets Miss Fab made were in use and Little B was lov­ing her new bag too.

I love tak­ing „warm” shots when its cloudy and rainy.

And more road snaps (I warned you).

And then we were there.

The goats were sooo happy.

See, because the weather was crappy, peo­ple were not com­ing and the ani­mals were hun­gry. Their usual parade of humans with bags of feed were some­where else, keep­ing dry.

But not us.

They loved us — or wanted to eat us, I am not sure which.

That mid­dle one is Lips. We named her last time because she does this funny thing with her mouth. It looks like a goat thing, but she does it more so than the other ones.

The Dod was into it straight away. He had no qualms putting his hands in just about any mouth.

This one was not hun­gry. Just wanted to sleep.

These ones were from the mob, I think. They were giv­ing me the evil eye.

The ducks couldnt care any less who we were. They just walked around like they owned the place.

And kept on jump­ing in this lit­tle pan. Muahaha, and they think they are All That?! Snicker.

See, another ani­mal has my sons’ hand in their mouth.

This one sucked on it too. You can see it in his eyes.

„I have sucked on the Caramel Popcorn! Have you?”

As a mat­ter of fact…

Then the ducks walked by in their snobby way.  Or was it wob­bly…
Dont judge, my English is not that good.

Miss Fab spent most of her time with the bun­nies and guinea pigs.
She was steal­ing grass from the camel,
which was too busy parad­ing around proud of its caramelized mouth.

And then Mr.Blab had the camera.

Which is not always good.

He doc­u­mented me from bee­hind. In all my glory.

Lets dis­sect, shall we.
The boy is bare footed, cause we were not pre­pared for cold weather. So I had the pink scarf dug from the car to wrap him in it. That top and those pants were the only warmer clothes in my arse­nal too. Too bad they didnt match, work together in any way. But at least he didnt cap­ture the best part. My flip flops. My Birkis.  The look was won­der­ful, I tell you.

Even she was star­ing at me.

The best part for me was yet to come though.

A birth.

One of the goats gave birth while we were there.

It was beautiful.

She licked them so care­fully and loving.

One of them was call­ing loudly and strong. But she was giv­ing the other one more atten­tion. I won­dered if its because she feels it needed her help more.. Also the whole time she would what seemed to me, reas­sure them. They would call and she would make this deep noise, like a grunt. Every time.

We got to hold a joey too.
(joey is a baby kan­ga­roo )

There were a few orphans in the place and they were rear­ing them.

And then on to other things.

You may say, where is this rain? I no see it!

Here

And here:

See, I told you.

But on pic­tures it looks nice, I think.

Too bad its not good for beach.

And this place has one of our favorite beaches ever.

We HAVE to go to it.

The weather reports are not good. We are get­ting worried.

And start think­ing of plan B — extend­ing the hol­i­day to wait for the sunny day…

After pizza din­ner, as ordered by the birth­day girl, we go to bed and hope.

Hope against all hope that the weather is bet­ter tomorrow…

..

It bet­ter be.