Author: Caroline

Why we travel

Posted on by Caroline
If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been making up this trip as we’ve been going. I’m absolutely loving this mode of travel since we’ve got a little more time. But it also means that as soon as we get somewhere, we’re trying to simultaneously enjoy where we’re at and think ahead to where we’re heading next. (On a side note, I can’t think of a better metaphor for life). But once I add in working part-time and my own personal travel journaling, I haven’t done nearly as much blogging as I hoped I would. But we’re nearing the end of our trip now and I’ve been thinking a lot about what lessons our kids have learned from this experience. I’m excited...Read More

Τα λέμε αργότερα!

Posted on by Caroline
We’ve spent the last few days in Mykonos. It’s somehow managed to be simultaneously exhilarating and utterly relaxing. Tim found a place to rent ATVs, so we’ve all put on our helmets and motored our way around from one end of the island to another. I needed all my faculties focused on driving, so I got very few photos, but the landscape was alien, stark, and stunning... tiny whitewashed chapels, donkeys, goats, views over the Aegean Sea, a rising gibbous moon, iconic pine trees and, of course, the beautiful white and blue houses. The impossibly narrow roads are also teeming with other tourists on their ATVs and scooters, pedestrians, hotel vans, and somehow (surely it’s a break in space/time?) gigantic...Read More

The Acropolis

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday we visited the Acropolis. Let me say that again. Yesterday we visited the Acropolis. There are so many layers of story and history, I could spend a lifetime reading and exploring. But for this trip, a few hours on the Acropolis and a few hours in the museum will have to do. We followed the advice of a taxi driver and arrived at the foot of the Acropolis around 8 AM. Based on the waves of tourists flowing in later and the rising heat, it was the right time to be there. Today's site directs the tourists to arrive at the south side of the Propylaia, but we decided to backtrack a bit and enter through the Beulé Gate....Read More

With the Wind

Posted on by Caroline
This style of traveling is new to me. Every day we wake up and evaluate our itinerary - how are the winds? Our moods? Our whims? Which harbor has space for us? Then we go where the winds take us. Even before we left for Greece, we were juggling so many shifting variables, that we never truly nailed down where we would go and when. We’re only starting to get a hazy idea of what we’ll do after our boat trip, but it’s not a certain thing yet. So when we arrived in the Poros harbor last night, I wasn’t entirely sure where we were. I didn’t know the history, the landmarks, the cuisine. But the arrival was stunning. We...Read More

Be back soon…

Posted on by Caroline
We haven’t had power for two days and our phones and computers have been limping along on our teeny little external battery. So we’ve been falling behind on posts. (But not falling behind on fun…) Today we woke up in Madraki, near the town of Hydra, and we’re on our way now back to port in Athens. We’ll stay on the boat for one last night tonight and tomorrow we’ll have a recovery day before exploring Athens. We’ll catch up soon!

Epidavros

Posted on by Caroline
The sun’s rising now on our second morning on the boat. We decided to spend a full day in Epidavros yesterday. Epidavros is a harbor town on the Peloponnesian penisula. We walked to an ancient amphitheater, ate some gelato, went swimming on the beach, and ate some more gelato. The kids have been making friends with all the cats wandering around town. And I do mean all of the cats! It’s been hot, and I’ve been honestly missing air conditioning… But as long as we can get in the water and sleep on the deck, it’s been manageable. And well worth it. Today we’re heading out to the island of Paros. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to open up the...Read More

The travel bug

Posted on by Caroline
Two years ago today, Tim sat down at his first day of training at United. The culmination of years of hard work. And on Sunday, we’ll celebrate 17 years since we got married. I’d like to think that we’ve learned a few things along the way. Since we’re currently on another airplane flight, I’m inclined to think of those lessons as a traveling analogy. Tim and I met when we were both living in England, and by the time we’d been dating a few months we’d traveled all across Europe together. So you could say that traveling is hardwired into our relationship. We strive to be adaptable and curious. To plan when we can, and change course if opportunity knocks....Read More
Planning for Adventure

Parts unknown…

Posted on by Caroline
And… we’re off. After getting temporarily sidelined, we’re finally starting to live the vision we had when we uprooted ourselves and moved to Guam. Tim got the month of August off and so we’re setting out for parts unknown. Okay, maybe parts only hazily known. We’ll be in Denver for a few days before we set off toward Europe. Specifically, Greece. We spent most of this school year learning about ancient history. And Amelia’s taken a few sailing classes lately, so Greece seemed to be the perfect fit. Or maybe we’re just working our way through our “G” geography. We originally chose Europe so that we could meet up with cousins that we’ve dearly missed. But it turns out that...Read More

Lair o’ the Bear

Posted on by Caroline
It’s been a year since we upended our lives. In this season of reflection, I’ve been thinking about that anniversary. Our life was good in Davis. I loved my job - who I worked with, what we were doing, the values we embodied in the projects we built. And Davis is a community straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We were exceptionally lucky in our friends and our schools. But… we were so busy with our daily lives that we barely saw each other. I didn't want to miss any more of Amelia and Duke's childhood. So when we decided to re-think everything, it wasn’t because we were unhappy with any one aspect of our life. We decided to...Read More

Lessons

Posted on by Caroline
I sat down at the kitchen table to draft a post about how I’m striving to learn the lessons of patience and grace that this year seems to demand of me. And Duke decided to try out all the different alarm tones available on his iPad. All of them: foghorn, klaxon, old fashioned telephone ringtone. And then listen to all of them all over and over again. Usually the result of this kind of experiment is a top volume alarm going off at 1:30 A.M. But I am learning patience. I am learning to live with the vast universe of things that I can’t control. I am learning to truly treasure the seemingly small list of things that I can...Read More