If you’ve just arrived and want to know the backstory to this adventure, check out the posts we link to below. Or you can skip ahead to Quito using the link in the upper right hand corner of this post.

Since this blog first launched in November 2007, subscribers to this site have:

• Met the James family.
• Learned how they decided to take this trip.
• Listened as Craig confronted rational and irrational fears.
• Heard Dani, Caroline and Conor’s hopes and fears about traveling the world for a year.
• Discovered their reluctance to tell anyone about their adventure.
• Found out their initial and final plans for roadschooling their kids.
• Applauded the launch of Caroline and Conor’s blog offering their unique (and unedited) perspective.
• Laughed at Dani’s meditation on travel underwear.
• Identified all the ways a person could follow the James family journey on the web.
• And finally, learned about the ambitious itinerary planned for the year ahead.

Read these posts and you’ll have a pretty good understanding of what led us to this point. Or, skip the backstory and just enjoy the travelogue. Either way, we’re glad you stopped by.

Last night I was doing some final packing, shuffling favorites on my iPod. Just as I was about to call it quits for the evening, a Bruce Springsteen song put the trip in perspective for me:

Now all that’s sure on the boulevard
Is that life is just a house of cards
As fragile as each and every breath
Of this child sleeping in our bed.
.
Tonight let’s lie beneath the eaves
Just a close band of happy thieves
And when that train comes we’ll get on board
And steal what we can from the treasures of the Lord.
.

Next stop: Quito.