Starting a Blog

It seems innocuous enough - to start a blog, just start writing. But where to start? At the very beginning? No, that's far too long ago. Since we are celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary by going on an incredible, wild, daunting, around-the-world trip, let's just start the blog as we start this trip. 

So how does one plan an around-the-world trip? In this case it happened by accident. We were invited to a wedding in Israel in July so instead of our usual summer trip to Belize, we thought that we would plan a summer trip that takes advantage of the fact that we had a great excuse to go to Israel. Where else to go? One of the places that we really loved during our honeymoon was Barcelona Spain. So Barcelona was in. Next, we remembered that when we went to Israel and Greece, in 2009, we lamented the fact that we should have gone to Istanbul. So Istanbul was in. Okay, fours days in Barcelona, followed by eight days in Israel, split between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and finally four days in Istanbul - not bad; seemed like enough! Well, not quite. We've always wanted to go to Bali, but Bali is no where near Istanbul and the Europe/Asia border. However, modern air travel being what it is, means that you get on a plane somewhere and then you get off a plane somewhere - the in between almost doesn't matter. So Bali was in for eight days - four in Ubud and four in Sanur. So since Bali is about halfway around the world, it makes no sense to backtrack - we'll just complete the circumnavigation to get home!

We'll begin the trip with two days in New Jersey visiting Joani's sister, Randi and her family and we'll end the trip with three days in Walnut Creek, California, visiting our daughter, Ryley and her family. Oh, and we'll also stop at the house that we just bought in Concord, about 3 miles from Ryley. The new house will be the subject of the blog sometime in the future.