Prologue

Prologue

It has certainly been a busy and trying couple of weeks. Finally I am feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready.

For a little backstory for those less familiar with my life, My name is Rivers and I was born and raised in Florence, Oregon. I met my wife, Laura, at the University of Oregon, and after my graduation in 2013, we moved to Rochester, NY. We only lived there for 12 months as Laura graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in nursing. Following our time in the cold north, we decided that Laura's versatile career would allow us to follow my dream of SCUBA diving for a living. Happy to leave a place that was white from November to May, we set off for Hawaii. After a short stay with our parents in Oregon preparing for the move, Laura was hired by Maui Memorial Hospital and 13 days later was on a flight to Maui. I was able to realize my dreams and become a Divemaster, and there we stayed for two years. The longest we had lived in any single location since our four years in Eugene at U of O. For various reasons, we decided our time in Hawaii was coming to a close.

We certainly crave permanence after living in 7 places in the last 6 years, but opportunity to save enough money to be young and free from responsibility for several months was too inviting, so we set to planning. This trip is the culmination of several months of saving and planning. We depart tomorrow and will be in at least 6 different countries over the next 4 months, and this will be the public record of our journey.

So, with that out of the way...

Our last week on Maui was hectic to say the least.
Without going into too much detail, we finally escaped with a little help from our friends (actually a lot of help) and packed our three bags each, plus our carry-ons and the personal items (one of which was our cat Clifford), plus the dog, Malina, under the plane.

Clifford: a cat accustomed to travel

Malina who only lived on Maui

Now that we are back in Oregon, staying with Laura's parents in Corvallis, we have barely had a moment to stop and smell the roses. We have been down to Eugene to drop off Clifford with a close friend with whom he has already lived, and we have braved a snow storm to visit two of Laura's sisters and snowboard on Mt. Bachelor. 8 days have gone by quickly.

Hours after our engagement (7/14/13, Roatan, Honduras)

Now it is the eve of our departure. We are almost fully packed, and I have started a blog to recount and document our travels. Tomorrow we will fly from Portland, Oregon to Singapore through San Francisco. About 90 min on our first flight and 17.5 hrs on the second leg. We leave PDX at 3:15PM on a Saturday and arrive in Singapore 7:45AM Monday. That's the fun of the International Dateline.

From There we will be off to East Indonesia for the first big stop: Sorong, from where we will embark on a liveaboard dive trip in the renowned Raja Ampat Islands.

I am excited and nervous and it certainly doesn't quite feel real yet. Laura and I have both commented that until we stop having to constantly pack and organize and get off a plane somewhere else it will still feel like a continuation of the grind of moving. I am quire looking forward to experiencing relaxation and the wonder of exploration.

Hours after our engagement (7/14/13, Roatan, Honduras)

~Rivers Gage-Hunt