How to pick from what the world has to offer-

Although we didn't want to be locked into a set itinerary, unfortunately we are quickly finding out that open ended flights are no longer an option (Thanks for nothing Osama). Therefore, we have come up with a rough draft so that we could move forward and purchase our plane tickets for the year. With that said, this is our plan (or lack thereof) and I guess we'll see how much this changes as our adventure marches on...

1. Start south of the border in a wonderful country called Peru. What we do there is unknown except, of course, to trek among the llama's and awe-inspiring Inca ruins of Macchu Pichu. From Peru, we head to Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, land of the Tango.

2. Leave Argentina for South Africa, a unexpected but exciting layover none the less. Lions and tigers and waterbucks oh my (yes, those really exist).

3. A stint in Sri Lanka and then on to India the enormous land of chaos and color and culture. Don't know where to start here so what the hell, we'll wing it. Stay tuned for more on India.

4. Moving on to Nepal. Here we will hopefully trek among the best of them (k-maybe not to the summit of Everest) but at least to a couple of tea houses in the Annapurna circuit. Yes, we may even get a few photos of the furry, yet elusive Yetti.

5. Finally, Southeast Asia where we will wander from Bangkok to Laos, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and to our final stop, Thailand, where we will end this crazy madness to sit on the beach, drinking mango shakes, contemplating the crazy things we've seen as the sun sets and possible wonder if we truly do want to leave it all behind to dive headfirst back into the "real world".
Stay tuned...

Enough of the Sentimental Stuff

OK. Now that it has been explained what it is that we're doing, lets shift to the nitty-gritty state of affairs that have consumed our lives since we actually decidedto try and pull this off. As proud home owners of a 106 year old house in SLC, and since the equity from our fine abode is financing this trip(see photo of the cash cow on the right), let it be known that we've been slaving away like a madmen for the past month and a half to get things in order so that we can rent the place while we're gone.

During this time we've installed a new hot water cooler (thank you brother), replaced some plumbing in the dungeon (compliments of Wayne the unreliable plumber), hoisted a swamp cooler to the top of our two story house (by ourselves) and installed it, and trenched the back yard and installed sprinklers. The fun doesn't stop there, especially since we're t-minus two months and counting until departure, and far, far, far from being ready. I won't continue with the boring details of chores and slave labor in the yard--but there is a long list of stuff that still needs to happen. I think we've done more improvements on the house in the past 4 weeks than we did the entire summer of '06. Funny how we're making the place nicer and more reliable, just so we can leave. If any of you are looking for something fun to do on the weekends--well, you know where we live.

To Our Peeps

If your reading this blog, at least at the time of these early entries, you probably know the story behind Shanon and Jared. Depending on how you know us you might say that we're crazy, lucky, adventurous, maybe a tad bit irresponsible (since we're both quitting our jobs)--or maybe you envy/despise the fact that we're actually pulling this off. Whatever your opinion is of our decision to ditch the throes of reality, you should know that we truly think we would be haunted with regret for the rest of our days on this earth if we didn't take this leap. Therefore, with all the good intentions of self preservation in mind we're off to see the people and places of the world before they're gone forever...

Don't worry though, we're pretty sure we'll come back.

The Beginning of Our Grand Scheme

As ambitious world travelers with hardly any global travel under our belts, next to no money in the bank and the grandiose idea of pulling off something miraculous in our lives before strolling out of our 20's, the origins of this blog, and more importantly the basis of its contents, were created with you the viewer in mind.

Since traveling to Thailand in 2003, our ongoing conversations about traveling the world were typically grounded, as usual, by the realization that we lacked a substantial savings account and had a stark inability to tuck away any cash after payday. So instead, we continued to scrape by, make our mortgage payment, curse our low paying jobs, and continue to do what we did best--talk about big trips.

That all changed in January of this year, on a day that was seemingly like any other. As the contents of this humbe blog will describe, our lives are already undergoing drastic changes as we move closer to our anticipated departure in early September. If you think this sounds slightly interesting, make sure to tune in from time to time, and we'll do our best to keep the entertainment pumping.