The Detour Diary

The whole idea of this trip seemed a little crazy when we first came up with it. I mean, what kind of sane, normal* people just sell a bunch of their stuff, pack up and leave to travel around the world with their kid and no real plan on exactly where they’re going or what they’re doing, right?

Well today, Jack woke up early and decided he wanted to write in one of his travel journals before we got up. Just to be clear, the usual morning routine revolves more around reading Star Wars books, so I was kind of shocked he was doing this without us asking, but you won’t hear me complaining.

This particular travel journal has a page with a quote, maybe every ten pages or so. He pointed a specific quote out to me and said, “This is really cool, mom, I like it.” I leaned closer to read it and it said:

“It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

– Ursula K. Le Guin

Wow, that totally nailed it. That’s the whole reason we’re doing all of this, to just enjoy the journey as we go along. It’s about all the experiences and the amazing people that we meet and learning how other cultures are different from ours, yet not really all that different at the same time. It’s about taking this time while he’s little to be with him and have this experience as a family while we can.

Just for the record, we don’t have these ‘ah ha’ moments every day. There are some days where we’re hot, sweaty and tired and just need a break from each other. So I’ll appreciate these kind of moments when we can get them!

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*Our close friends and family might argue we were never “sane” or “normal” to start with, but that’s another story…