Settling into a routine, sort of

Since we've been back, we haven't really settled in one place. Although we've physically spent the most time at Jaimee's dad and step-mom's house in Shrewsbury, we've actually been moving around quite a bit, as recent readers of the blog know. Our routine seems to be, do some hiking, go to a family function, visit some relatives, do a little more hiking, visit some more family, etc. Although it's been chaotic and somewhat random, it's actually started to feel like a routine of sorts. It's been a blast staying with Marty and Sandi. They are super generous and we enjoy spending time with them. Plus, there's a swimming pool, HBO (with video on demand!) and a wonderful garden bursting with fresh produce this time of year. However, it's also starting to feel someone uncharted and like we're drifting. Jaimee and I both realize it's time to "settle down" and get our own place. There are also jobs to get, as we don't have unlimited funds.

So, we've been on both the job and apartment hunt. Jaimee had one interview, where she was promptly offered the job (I'll let her post about it), while I've had several interviews but no job offers just yet. We've also looked at a few apartments, but the rents in the Boston area are a lot higher than Seattle so we're having a hard time figuring out what's a good value.

All of this has been somewhat stressful (especially the job interviews for me, which have been much more intense than what I was expecting). Which is why we keep interspersing little hiking adventures along the way. We did a short hike up Mt. Wachusset, the "highest mountain in southern New England east of the Connecticut River." Despite all those qualifications, the hike was a good workout, albeit very buggy. The view at the top was beautiful. It's pretty clear this is the tallest mountain for quite a ways:

From August 2010

I also hiked some more of the Long Trail. I completed a 25 mile section over two days between Route 140 near Wallingford and Route 4 at Killington. I would have liked to hike more but because of my scheduled job interviews I wasn't able to get out there for more continuous days. Killington, the highest peak in southern Vermont is one of Vermont's five 4,000 footers, so it was neat to climb it. I'd skied the mountain many times when I lived in Vermont, but this was my first time hiking up it:

From Long Trail 2010

We also scheduled a return trip to Seattle. We'd been planning on returning for a visit on account of two weddings we wanted to go to, so we finally bought our tickets for September 3 to September 8. Somewhat of a short trip, but I guess I'm being optimistic about having a job by then, and Jaimee should have already started hers. The cool thing about our tickets though is that they were free! We cashed in on our Capital One miles, most of them earned from the spending on our trip. I'm always skeptical about being able to redeem miles, but it turns out the hassle-free part of Capital One miles is really true.

Off on the Long Trail

I'm headed to Vermont as soon as I finish packing. Tomorrow morning I start my Long Trail hike. My cousin Bevan is joining me for the first three days and then I'll be on my own for the rest. (Unless anyone cares to join me. Anyone? The invitation is out there.) I'm leaving the schedule somewhat open although I created a quick map of my projected route with each day's shelter stop marked on the map. The schedule is subject to change, depending on how I feel each day, but the plan is to stay at a shelter each night. (There are shelters approximately every five to 10 miles so I can adjust the schedule as need be.)


View Long Trail 2010 in a larger map

If all goes according to plan I will spend 18 days hiking with rest days after the first and second weeks (in Killington and Stowe, respectively). Jaimee is planning on meeting me for each of these rest days when I will resupply for the upcoming week. Be sure to check my Spot page as I intend to check-in every night, and if I get Internet access during my off-days I'll update the blog with some pictures of the hike. I'm super excited!

The End is Now in Sight

We're having fun in Hampi, which we'll post about soon, but we have big news that deserves its own blog post: we booked our tickets to return to the United States!

We will fly into Boston's Logan International Airport on June 10th at 6:25 PM. You can now mark your calendars and stop asking us when we'll be back.

After much searching of plane tickets and inquires into the use of frequent flyer miles we ended up booking tickets on Iceland Air. In searches they came up the cheapest and we were able to include a four-day layover in Iceland which will be a nice finish to our trip (outdoor saunas anyone?). Plus, it will be close to the summer solstice so it will be fun to have super-long days.

Additionally, we booked our tickets out of India. We leave Mumbai April 25th for Cairo, Egypt, where we have a six day layover before heading to Istanbul, Turkey on May 1st. Since our Boston tickets leave from Frankfurt, Germany on June 6th, that means we'll have a little over one month for Turkey and Europe. This is shorter than we'd hoped, but we'll make it work.

Some might be thinking we're coming back sooner than expected, which is sort of true. We decided to come back to the US in June for several reasons:

• My sister is expecting my first nephew (her first child) in early June and I wanted to be back to welcome him into the world
• Jaimee's brother is graduating from High School and we wanted to be back to celebrate
• Jaimee's cousin is getting married the same weekend as the High School graduation
• My Aunt & Uncle are vacationing in Martha's Vineyard the first weekend we get back so we thought a vacation from our vacation would be a great way to re-acclimate to the USA.
• Our trip isn't really over until we start working again, which if we have anything to say about it won't be for a few more months!

We've updated the finances page and calendar page with this new information. Check those out if you're curious as to what our flights cost.

This is all very exciting, but a little sad too in that we now have an end date for our trip. It's been amazing so far, and we do have close to two months left which I'm sure will have many more adventures!

Waiting out the rain

It is pouring down buckets of rain right now so we're waiting it out at our hostel in Fox Glacier along the West Coast of the South Island. After escaping from Jack's we rented a car in Westport for a tour of the South Island. It's been really fun and we've seen a ton. We won't recount every step of the way, but you can browse through the pictures here:

South Island Roadtrip Part I

One of the highlights for sure was our visit to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. As we mentioned briefly in our New Year's post, we spent two nights at the New Zealand Alpine Club lodge over New Year's. It was windy and cloudy over the mountains for most of our visit, but on the morning we left, Mount Cook was visible:

From South Island Roadtrip Part I

It's an amazing sight, and then as we were driving away we stopped for more pictures at a viewpoint:

From South Island Roadtrip Part I

We went to Queenstown for a night, and wow was it packed with tourists. All the hostels were full so we ended up renting a tent for the night and camping at a campground in town. We can't believe how they pack people into the campgrounds here. It's pretty standard to put caravans and tents right next to one another. And it's not cheap! It would have been nice to get out in the backcountry here but we don't really have the right equipment (i.e., no stove, tent) and to stay in a hut costs about 50% more than staying in a hostel.

We're enjoying the West Coast as it's less touristy and when it's not raining (about half the time) the views and walks are great. We also had fun picking up hitchhikers yesterday. We gave a Swiss kid a ride (he was a former UN soldier in Africa) and then we drove these two teenagers across the island. They were doing what they called the "amusing race" where two teams of two were racing around the island only by hitchhiking. Ah, what crazy stuff the NZ youth do! We thought it was funny that they even stopped with us and walked down to a waterfall along the way:

From South Island Roadtrip Part I

We'll be back in Westport by Tuesday to return the car, then we're taking the TranzAlpine train across the island to Christchurch. It's supposed to be super scenic, and although we've already driven the road across, the train follows a different route.

And, in other news, we've booked our tickets out of New Zealand. We have been watching fares from New Zealand to Southeast Asia and the tickets we bought seem like a good deal. We're flying out of Christchurch on the South Island so we don't have to travel back to Auckland which is good. We fly to Singapore for five nights on January 25, then on to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on the 30th. You can check our finance and calendar pages for more details. We've already sent out some couchsurfing requests for both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It actually looks like there are some cool hosts in both places.

Given that we have three more weeks in New Zealand we're going to try and WWOOF one more time before we leave. We have some leads on farms in the south. But if that doesn't work out, we're enjoying being tourists.

San Francisco Part II

After visiting my friend Lisa in Marin county and touring the city of San Francisco, we next went to Berkeley for a stroll around the town and University of California campus. We loved the town (although I think the University of Washington campus is prettier) and loved to see all the people biking. Then we went to visit the Keynote Systems headquarters in San Mateo, the company who I'd worked for in Seattle for the past two years. Being that it was a Friday afternoon there weren't very many people around, but my former co-worker Herman was kind enough to tour me around a little.

Then we went to the charming town of Los Gatos to visit my high school friend Tim and his wife Nora. The town is really quaint and Tim and Nora were excellent hosts. We had a wonderful dinner and immensely enjoyed chatting and hanging out for the evening. They live on a wooded road right outside of Los Gatos and their house could have easily been found in Vermont.

Although we'll be seeing lots of different places on our trip, to me, it's more about the people. I'm not being very good about getting pictures of all the people we're staying with on the way, but I'm really enjoying visiting the people along the way.


We also decided on our first trip scheduling change. Originally we'd thought we'd take a trip to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California but after looking into the logistics of it we decided we're going to instead spend the next week in the Sierra mountains. We were already planning on climbing Mt. Whitney on Tuesday, but now instead of heading right back to the coast after the climb we're going to stay out there until after Labor Day when we'll then head to LA to visit another old friend.


So, we probably won't update the blog in the next week, but you can check our Spot page to know where we are. We'll update it at least once a day with our new location.

Calendar

Here's a calendar which we'll update as we go along. Before we leave the entries are for people we've hosted through couchsurfing. We also updated the first little bit of our trip and the plane tickets we've already purchased. Check back for updates.