Is oddness a word? Since it didn’t come up underlined I can only assume yes, I could confirm that it is.. but where is the fun in that? I like the start so will just go with it. November has been full of odd moments. It all started off when I booked a massage… sounds scary I know! It appears that the booking of the massage has resulted in me losing my job, being diagnosed with Celiac Disease, my family together for the first time in 17 years, a new hot water tank and swimming lessons.

Winter is coming… no really it is supposed to snow. Thankfully we have restored the garage to its intended use and our vehicles are parked indoors so we won’t need to get our the ice scraper in the morning. After a recent work trip to Chicago by me, we were able to update our countries with carry on only to include the US. I have to admit I was somewhat nervous about doing carry on with just me.

What!?! This was supposed to be easy.. sell everything and travel. Sure.. but the actual doing of it.. well, lets just say I’ll need a week to recover from the last few weeks.. and a massage.. probably a pedicure and another massage! Since we made the actual decision to do this we have run to meetings with accountants, financial planners, realtors back to financial planners, holding garage sales, working, life in general and then this and then that.

Something changed this year and it’s a good thing. Over the years, usually while on vacation, Paul and I have talked about travelling, getting out of the rat race and like most people, usually done it in “pipe-dream” mode. We’d met people who were travelling for several years, people who downsized so they could travel for half the year, who just made life changes to make it happen and we’d think “we should do this”.

Our Arc’Teryx Bora 65 Backpacks are 2 of the best things we’ve purchased. Despite the miles on them they’ve come through everything with flying colours. Arc’Teryx has provided us with some great products. They are located in Vancouver, Canada and produce very high quality gear that they completely stand behind. Over the years we’ve had 3 backpacks (Bora 80 and 2 Bora 65’s), 4 Gore-Tex jackets (1 15-year-old and 3 newish Theta ARs) and 2 hooded Atom LT insulated jackets from them.