Overture

Hi everyone!

Justin and I are about to set off on an epic journey. Roughly, we're going from Seattle to San Francisco to New York (quickly) in a car, then to Australia and New Zealand in a plane, then from New York to San Francisco (slowly) in a car. This blog should keep you informed of our whereabouts and shenanigans.

For those that don't know, the story of our three-month hiatus from our careers is as follows. When I took a federal clerkship in Seattle and Justin took a paid year off from his law firm (most of which he spent in Ecuador) we knew that our year apart must, if at all possible, end with a big long vacation together. The question, of course, was: where should we go?

On the one hand, we wanted to go somewhere far away -- somewhere we wouldn't be likely to return. This is probably the last time we'll have a long time away together. We're both overachievers with awesome law careers ahead of us that are likely to eat up most of our active years. On the other hand, our dear and vitally important families are scattered across the United States, and we'd be terribly remiss not to visit them, too.

So we settled for American Road Trip (3 weeks) + Australian Epic Adventure (7 weeks). Three weeks in a car all smushed together at once would cause us backaches and cabin fever, so we split up the road trip, putting the Australian bit in the middle. In Australia, we basically want to travel as far away from the beaten path as we can safely go. In America, we want to visit as many friends and family as will take us.

We're leaving on Wednesday, August 18th, and we're terribly excited!

See you on the road,

Meredith and Justin

P.S. Yes, "The timorous may stay at home" is from Murphy v. Steeplechase Amusement Co., 250 N.Y. 479, 483 (1929) (Cardozo, J.). We know. We're nerdy.