July 2nd, 2021.
I imagine it’s a pretty rare thing to be able to utter the well-known quote “this is the first day of the rest of your life” and know for certain that those words you are saying are unambiguous. An absolute and unequivocal fact.
But that’s exactly what happened on July 2nd when Blair and I hopped in our car and drove out of Los Angeles, the city we both had called home for over 10 years, the city where we made countless lifelong friends and memories, the city that we both grew to love more than I think either of us ever imagined we would, and headed north.
The picture above is the very first of many pictures we would come to take on our slow, meandering, journey back to a new life in Bermuda. The picture is nothing special on its surface, but remarkable for what it represents.
The start of a new chapter, a second phase in our lives together, day 1 of Blandrew’s great adventure.
When we snapped that car selfie heading up the same I-5 freeway we’d driven countless times on our way to different mini-adventures - music festivals, rented houses for friend’s birthdays, national parks - the destination was always known and a return to LA always awaited at the road’s end.
The fact this trip was different was clear from the start. While the big smiles on our faces show a mix of understandable excitement and absolute relief at being done with the horrendous task of putting our entire lives into a 10x10 storage container, what you don’t see are the tears - of which there were more than a few - as it dawned on us that this time there would be no LA return. At least not to our home and our permanent lives there.
I write this post 80 days after that photo was snapped, from our temporary home in Sevilla where we are finally enjoying a bit of extended time in one place. And while it’s taken a while to make this first post, we hope to add to the blog with a steadier cadence going forwards.
We’ve seen and done a ton in the 2 and a half months since July 2nd and we hope to get to it all.
While this blog is mostly for us to have a place to go back to when the adventure is over and we want to reminisce and relive all the best parts, we are also keeping it to:
Keep our friends and families who have been so generous with their financial and verbal support up-to-date on our travels
Show off all the incredible photos Blair has captured and continues to capture at each place we visit
Serve an inspirational and educational purpose for any one reading who may want to plan a future visit of their own to any of the countries or cities we’ve explored
We know how crazy of a time we chose for this big move and fully appreciate how lucky we are to be where we are given the state of the world. But is there ever a ‘right time’ to do anything? All we can do is continue to put our own safety and the safety of those we come into contact with at the forefront of our decision-making. Some of our original plans have had to change already! Others surely will in the next few months. We will continue to appreciate every day, lift each other up, and take whatever we can get out of and from these special days.
More to come.
A & B