Surely eighteen days in Montreal should have been ample time to get "the last few things" done and soak in some good times with our families and friends, with plenty of time left over to look back on the life we left behind in San Diego and look forward to what awaits us during our travels.

Yet, as we sit here in the airport lounge awaiting the first leg of our big journey, we take what feels like the first free breath. "The last few things" turned out to fill mostly 18 hour days with busy prep work, right until the last minutes before leaving for the airport. What an enormous undertaking.

Each day, we'd add as much to our to-do list as we'd take off, whether it was making and notarizing our wills, unpacking our moving truck into Jo’s mom’s basement, closing on the sale of our house, arranging travel insurance, picking up the last pieces of gear or seam sealing and waterproofing them, getting calling cards, or obsessively packing, discarding items, tweaking and repacking.

After it’s all done, we feel great knowing that our affairs are in order, our belongings stored away safely and we have a couple of light packs with us with nothing but open choice in front of us.