From Chicago

Greetings from Arcadia,

Before I say anything else, I have to give you all a huge thank you. I have never felt such support and love from friends, family, and even total strangers. Thank you to everyone who texted, called, or reached out to me as I got ready to leave home and embark on this journey. The fact that other people think I can do this is the reason I can actually do this.

So, you know that feeling when you have left your house and are on your way to a vacation, a weekend trip, holidays with the family [insert any time you spend more than a night away from home] and you feel like you forgot something really important? Like maybe you forgot to lock the back door, or pack your phone charger? This feeling is like that one, but on steroids. Having left for a 2+ month trip to multiple countries I’ve never been to and where I don’t speak the language, plus leaving my husband, animals and most of my belongings, and then also throw in that I’m leaving my beloved home in Kalamazoo for the last time, ever, and all my stuff will be in a strange new land called Utah when I get back. It feels like I have forgotten ALL THE THINGS. Despite the fact that I appear to have packed everything I own or have ever owned in the poor little Osprey, I still feel like I’m missing something.

I’m currently in Chicago, defrosting my fingers, toes, and nostril hair in the airport, waiting for a plane to whisk me away to South America (did I mention that it’s summer down there?). Beyond the feeling of forgetting things, this whole thing is very much like I am living out a strange alternate-universe-Sarah scenario, or maybe just that I’m taking really strong cold medication that makes everything seem like it’s not real life. People do double takes when I tell them I am doing a round-the-world trip. Like the pharmacist at Meijer, who barely looked at me when I stepped up to the counter, then slowly panned up, wide-eyed, when I told him that I was doing this trip around the world (he asked why I needed malaria meds…I want to clarify that I did not step up to the counter and announce to him that I plan to see the world). He was trying to square the image of this super-average looking Midwestern white girl with his idea of a person who travels the world. If his idea of what world travelers look like is anything like my own, I imagine he thought I would be approximately 80% more Carmen Sandiego-esque, but with one of those giant backpacker bags, and maybe speak with an alluring but hard-to-place accent.

So, beyond the hardships of the last couple weeks, packing everything we own, giving away a bunch of stuff, selling our house, and saying goodbye to people and places we have grown to love, I am ready to embark on a new path. I am scared, but excited. But most of all, I am COLD. I am prepared for the people at the hotel in Lima to just laugh and assume my American brain is frostbitten and I don’t understand Celsius when I tell them that it was -20 degrees when I left home. This plane can’t get me out of here soon enough.

Yours in sunshine and in snowbanks,

Sarah