It was nearly seven years ago, in the fall of 1999, when I moved from Alaska down to Florida. I had been intending to move to Seattle, but a strange turn of events got me a paid trip to Florida for a job interview which turned into a job. Always up for something new and different, I took it, planning to stay for a year or two. Now it's late 2006 and I own a house in Margate, Florida. I spent the last three years remodeling the house with my then-girlfriend, never quite happy in Florida (I don't enjoy this many people, this much concrete, this much heat, all with no nearby escape into nature), but never quite unhappy enough to find a way out, either.

The past couple of years I've been talking about moving, selling the house and buying a sailboat. The past year I've actually been focusing on the idea. The past six months my house has been on the market, but the market took a sharp turn for the worse. And finally this week it's under contract, hopefully to close without problems later next month. Whether or not I'll end up turning the house sale into a sailboat is yet to be determined.

It's been a stressful year for me, primarily due to a failing relationship that the harder I tried to fix the more it seemed to fall apart. It's finally over, so that's one less stress, once I get through the healing phase.

I'm headed up to Craig, Alaska, for at least a couple of months. My brother and his wife just had a baby daughter, making me an uncle. Seems a good place to take some R&R, clear out my head again, figure out what I want to do next.

I work remotely for a great startup out of California, loving working for people that I like rather than being just a cog in the corporate wheel. So that'll occupy my days in Alaska. Ah, but with spare time I'll get to walk the beaches, climb mountains, get out into the woods alone, stuff I've missed for too long living in Florida.

The many stressors of late in my life have taken their toll on my ability to maintain these web pages. But once I get to Alaska I suspect I'll get my rhythym back and start implementing the many ideas I've long had for this site.

Another week of packing, not a fun activity by any stretch of the imagination. And then I pile into a small crappy car that's destined to break down, with my ex, two cats and a dog, and drive from Florida to Oregon. (One might think I'm a glutton for punishment.) From there I'll wander up to Bellingham and take a ferry to Ketchikan, then another ferry to Craig. I may take a short sailing trip when I get there, but will quickly settle down in Craig.

It's all happening so quickly, and yet it all seems a million years away.

How I look forward to it.

• Background
• Day 0, It Begins
• Day 1, Beginning
• Day 2, Into Georgia
• Day 3, Making Miles
• Day 4, Making Up
• Day 5, Momentum
• Day 6, Aztec
• Day 7, Mesa Verde
• Days 8-10, Canyonlands National Park
• Day 11, Arches National Park
• Day 12, All's Well That Ends Well