WOW. Hi!!! We’re alive!

I’ve been neglecting this blog so hard and I’m so sorry! Life sort of took us for a whirlwind lately and we’ve just been reveling in it for the most part. Apologies for the ridiculously long delay in blog post.

So…where do I even begin?!

Where We’ve Been Since Last Time

One day we were sitting on our glorious balcony in Koh Samui, Thailand and just started thinking about the “big picture.” Of course all we want to do is travel and see as much as humanly possible, which, I believe with all my heart that we’ll never stop doing, but there was something that was calling us home.

Kile and I started thinking about our journey that got us this far. It took us 2 years to put the plan in place to start traveling the world — and at this point, we’ve been gone for a year and 2 months. It’s been nothing short of incredible. So our minds started racing and thinking “what if we went back home…and for the next 3-5 years…buckled down to save as much as we can and put a more permanent plan in place?” Our minds were reeling with what we could possibly accomplish.

So — we booked tickets back to the States. First stop? Boston. More specifically — Cape Cod to see my sister-from-another-mister and her wonderful husband for a couple weeks. Let me tell you — the flight from Hong Kong to Boston was a doozy.

Anyway! We ended up staying there for 3 weeks freezing our asses off and having a blast with some great people and their adorable dogs.

After 3 weeks of sightseeing with some besties — we were off to Dallas, Texas for some family time. Our plan at this point was to spend some time with the fam, buy a car, then road trip it home.

It was a tad warmer in Dallas so we were grateful for that and it was awesome to get some family time in. We did, in fact, even buy a car…but that’s when our plans changed in an instant…

We were pumped and preparing to hit the road for a trip to Southern California then back home to Oregon. But then? We got a message from our friend Julie whom we met in Playa del Carmen last year right around this time.

She informed us that her friend needed a house and dog sitter for 6 weeks in Playa del Carmen and extended the offer to us. We hesitated for a moment because we just bought the car hours before and were literally planning on leaving in 2 days. In fact — we even declined. But after thinking about it for…oh…20 minutes we just thought “why the hell not?!”

So! We left the car at my dad’s house in Dallas and flew back on down to Playa del Carmen!

 

So Here We Are! Back Where It All Started!

Now we’re back in Playa! Well…we’ve been here for a little over 5 weeks now and will be flying back to the States next week to resume the plan. But since we’ve been here, it’s just been amazing.

It was so nice to come back to a familiar place. Not only familiar, but the place where our year long travel adventures started in the first place. We know this area, love this part of Mexico, and not to mention? We have friends here now.

We were staying in a completely different part of town than we were last year — and this time? We had two doggies to hang out with! Their names are Lukki and Boots — they’re the absolute cutest.

So far, since we’ve been back in Playa — both of Kile’s brothers (Adam and Mason) came to visit. It was super great to have family around and show them some of our favorite spots on the Yucatan. We did trips back to Tulum, Akumal, Puerto Morelos, Valladolid and even some new adventures!

A couple of the new places we explored were Las Coloradas and Rio Lagartos. Las Coloradas is craaaazy. They are legitimately pink lakes. PINK LAKES! Located about an hour and a half north of Valladolid you can find a salt company that holds salt water in their own lake reserves. There are brine shrimp that live in them and they turn the water bright freakin’ pink. Absolutely breathtaking. Apparently you were able to swim in them once upon a time but can only do so with a tour now. Go figure.

Right outside of Las Coloradas is a little town called Rio Lagartos. Located on the northern end of the Yucatan peninsula this town was absolutely adorable. I have a feeling it’s going to gain in popularity. There’s a lagoon and river that runs right through the city that is literally named the “River of Crocodiles” aka Rio Lagartos. Apparently there’s crocodiles alllll up in there. Supposedly flamingos too, which — once again — we did not see. Such a bummer.

Such a fun road trip! Minus almost running out of gas on the way home. Surprise! We survived!

So yeah!

The wonderful woman we were house and dog sitting for ended up coming home early but we didn’t want to go back to the U.S. yet (the reasons are endless and probably quite obvious) so we got an apartment to see out our days here until May 3rd.

We’ll be soaking in as much Mexico as possible. Plus! We have our great friend, Beau, coming to visit for our last weekend. Going to be a blast for sure.

 

So, What’s Next?

This is always the question, isn’t it? What next? Well for us…we really don’t know. What we do know is that our brains are full of so much more knowledge and wisdom than they were a year ago.

We’re going to go back home to Portland, Oregon for a while to figure out our next step.

What we do know for sure is that there’s a great big world out there that makes us brim with gratitude. An international life is definitely in our future. The U.S. is always going to be “home” but in all reality — it just doesn’t align with our personal morals and beliefs.

We’ll be doing a lot of local exploring and adventuring while back in Oregon and will constantly be keeping everyone posted. One thing is for certain — something big, something really big is coming and is going to happen. And we’re super pumped about it.