On Foot - 50° 57' 17" N 144° 03' 33"W

Ever since I had met Kate (and well before), she had been dreaming about exploring the world by yacht.  I, on the other hand, had been living my dream of being a dad and having the mountains close by as a playground.  As Kate shared her hopes for an epic-scale adventure, I became more and more excited about helping her develop and be part of that plan.

You have heard or read about how this has unfolded so far.  We looked at what "exploring the world" meant to us.  We developed a list of where in the world we wanted to see.  We determined what tools we would need (a.k.a. the boat and the skillsets necessary).  We set a plan (including a schedule) and now we are executing that plan.  There have been many fun parts of this but also some very emotionally and logistically difficult parts of "getting on a sailboat and throwing off the docklines."

We have both had a number of sobering, point-of-no-return moments in this journey.  They may not be ones you might have guessed.  I wanted to document and share them.

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- when I was faced with a blank line to sign on a contract from Garcia Yachts that finished with,

"... I have read and agree to the terms of this contract."

   Gulp.

- when we clicked on the "Send" button of the e-mail that had a signed contract for a Garcia Exploration 45 attached.

- when we received the e-mail stating they had started work on our hull

- when we got the first pictures of flat pieces of aluminium that would become the ribs of our boat

How Chinook started ...

... and very quickly progressed.

- when Kate's bike sold

Off goes Kate's Cervelo ... without Kate!

- when we drove out of the garage in March, knowing new tenants would be the ones next opening the door of our home

- when I clicked on the "Purchase" button for two one-way airline tickets to Europe

- when we loaded my guitar and five Rubbermaid bins containing most of our possessions into the van to be shipped to France

Most of the stuff we will need on the boat

- when we drove away from the rock cut that we consider the entrance to the Bow Valley, knowing that it may be YEARS until we come back this way.

On our way, away from Canmore.

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Tonight, we had one more of those moments.  I took the licence plate off the van, watched the new owner drive away and realized that for the past forty-two years I had ALWAYS owned a car in Canada ... but no longer did.

Goodbye, Ski-bus!

Of all of these momentous events, saying goodbye to the Ski-Bus was surprisingly hard.