Last night, 6 billion people were forcibly ejected from the year 2002 by a planet that refuses to stop its annual pilgrimage around the sun long enough for anyone to peacefully recover from the hectic holiday season. As the Gregorian calendar year of 2003 catches up with planet Earth this morning, people across the United States are racing to repack the Christmas lights, stow their menorahs, complete their religious duties and wash out the New Year’s champagne flutes before they trudge back to work tomorrow to begin another year of providing for their lives.

Slowly, the wheels of commerce, education, family and religion will once again begin rolling down their familiar tracks, filling up the days with jobs and classes, soccer games and worship services. The routines return quickly, like the rails of a comfortable old railroad line, guiding people through each day, through each week, until another year disappears underneath the window of their railroad car.

Have you ever dreamed of jumping off that train, for just one year? Have you ever had the desire to take an entire year off the calendar of your life and devote it to the passionate exploration of the possible? Try to imagine it. Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you want to take with you on the voyage of your life?

Two years ago I made a New Year’s resolution that seemed impossible. I wanted only three things: a life, a wife, and a story. As a full time businessman and hopeful writer, I felt I could at least find my story, if I could only come up with more time to write it. I was less hopeful about taking the time off work to travel the world for a life in the sense I imagined, and never dreamed that my wife was just over the horizon. My, how God works in mysterious ways.

Kimberly walked into my life just six months after I made my resolution. Our "first date" was eight days in Hawaii, exploring waterfalls and backcountry roads, sailing and horseback riding in paradise. Within six months we were engaged, and this past August 24th, we had the wedding we always dreamed about. It was a little fairytale along the road to Hana on Maui, in Hawaii. A charming stone church from 1860 sheltered us from the rain while we shared our vows with our collected families. Finally a New Year”s resolution I actually kept!


With wife in hand, I was then ready to turn "my" voyage into "our" voyage as we began to plan the next resolution, "a life". We defined the life we wanted to live by a single phrase, "Around the World and back again." We want nothing more than to travel to the ends of the Earth, and to bring bits of those far-flung places home in our diaries and backpacks. We both know that now will be the best time to make our dreams happen. We are at natural points in our careers to step away, and we have not yet begun our family. We are ready to take the plunge.

Welcome to our story. Kimberly faithfully recorded the first chapter, "The
Honeymoon" in her diary, but much of it will remain a story for two. Some of the story must be told, however, to bring the rest of you up to speed.
We decided that a good first step in going "around the world and back again" would be to go around the United States and back again. This past summer, we began our test drive, using our trusty red convertible Toyota with a cute little trailer tucked in the back to hold our camping gear. The idea was simple. If we can get around the USA in a car without killing each other, spending all day, every day together, for 4 or 5 months, we can probably get along well enough to hit the road.

Several months and 16,000 road miles later, we came home from one life changing honeymoon. Along the way, we had some amazing highlights, some lowlights, and threw fits once or twice; but we did grow together in ways we never expected.

Highlights included natural wonders like camping along the coast in Oregon, visiting Yellowstone, and seeing the National Parks of the Southwest, the fall foliage in New England and alligators in the Everglades.
Along the way, we also stopped at many traditional honeymoon sights, among them were Disneyland California, Hawaii, Niagara Falls, Florida, and Disneyworld. We feasted on a few fabulous meals, like the Ono in Kauai, the crab in Dungeness, Washington, Beignets at the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans and lobster on the docks of Boothbay Harbor, Maine. We were also able to witness some of the most amazing sights ever created by man, including the cliff dwellings of the ancient Anasazi
at Mesa Verde, the statues of Mount Rushmore, The cacophony of light that is Times Square, and a nighttime launch of the space shuttle Endeavor. The list of highlights is nearly endless.

Not everything that was memorable, however, was positive. We camped in the rain more than once, including one night in Wyoming when the weather dropped into the thirties; but we were too far from anything resembling a town to find a motel. We ran out of gas once, but immediately started laughing so hard about it that when we called AAA they thought we were kids pulling a prank. (It was 102 degrees on Interstate 5 in California, in August, miles from nowhere and our air conditioning went out with the last of our gas. I thought this was hysterical!) By the time we left New England, we were so sick of the rain it took us three weeks of rehab in Florida to dry out; and even there, storms seemed to follow us like a lost puppy.

Perhaps the worst moment came when we tried visiting Las Vegas on a Saturday night without reservations. I drove there because I thought Kim wanted to see it. She went along thinking it was someplace I liked. Our time there was short and miserable. What we learned a few hours later, standing at a gas station just off the strip, was that we both hate Las Vegas; and we both need to speak up loudly and quickly or we will end up like the lovers in the story, "The Gift of the Magi", suffering because we love each other so much.

These are the "days of our lives" so far as husband and wife - mostly for better, some for worse, every one of the days a precious jewel because we spent them together. On December 13th, our trusty convertible brought us safely home again, in time to spend the holidays with family and plan for the year ahead. In the stories to come, we will share more about our plans and where we are going. "Topher’s Tales" has now become "He Tales - She Tales". Together, we will bring you around the world and back again, with stories and photos from each of us. When we head for South America in mid-January we will bring you along on the voyage of our lifetime. We hope you will enjoy our story.

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year!

Christopher and Kimberly