Wow… been a while since our last blog entry. We have both been incredibly busy. I finished up work at Nexidia. My last day was December 16th. Being one of the first employees, it feels very surreal leaving this job behind. I certainly did not feel this way when I began my last set of travels. I leave behind many friends/colleagues whom I will miss dearly. Friends planned two lunches and two parties to celebrate our departure. Thanks to Ken, Jim, Ethan, and Gautam for throwing us parties and lunches. We will miss you all.
During all of this, I spent a few hours putting together our address change notice and Teresa finished up our holiday e-card, so I sent both out in one e-mail. View Our Holiday E-Card! I now have 20 e-mails to respond to from various folks that would like to see us during our travels. If you’d like to hook up with us, send us an e-mail!
Anyhow, our first stop is “paradise!” We thought that since the Holidays are here we should begin our travels visiting family and friends down in Florida. We first visited with Teresa’s sister in Jacksonville. We are currently visiting with several of Teresa’s family members in Ft Myers. The weather is about as perfect as possible, sunny and 70 degrees. Ahhhh… another beautiful day in Paradise! 
Next we spend a few days with my grandmother in Boca Raton, then we stop in Orlando to see Teresa’s brother. Our friends Gautam and Donna will be on Cape San Blas and we will stay with them for a night.
The next bit is really a bit ironic. I swear, we did not plan things this way, but it turns out that our first of many, many nights of camping will begin on New Years Eve. What a way to kick off the New Year! We will be doing some “posh” camping (showers available) at Grayton Beach State Park, near Seaside, Florida. We plan on a short walk or bike into the beautiful coastal town of Seaside for our New Year’s Eve celebration.
The first week of January we will be exploring the Florida panhandle, on the list of things to see: Blackwater River State Park, Falling Waters State Park, Ponce de Leon Springs, and Florida Caverns State Park. We also hope to drop by and visit friends in Dothan and Mobile. The second week of January we will be staying with our friend Colbert living very close to the earth near Valdosta, Georgia. Colbert is an expert at living off of the land, and he is especially knowledgable with animals, sign tracking, and trapping. By mid-January we will be back through Atlanta for a day or two and then, after picking up and dropping off a few things, we head out west towards Colorado and the Koransky home in Edwards. By end of January, we hope to be in Death Valley (a place you really don’t want to visit in August!) It would be an awesome thing to see the desert bloom, but that depends on how much rain they get. It’s too soon to know about that. That’s about all we have planned for now, except for Europe in May and Alaska in July or August.
Anyhow, that’s about it for now. I’ll have a tech update in a few days, and we’ll write again in the new year. We hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and wonderful new year.
T & A