Atlanta, Georgia - Sorting things out...

All of the photos from the trip are now posted on the web!

Since John and I decided to travel separately after 8-months, you'll see the following after the country names:

[no name after the country name] - We traveled to these countries together, photos from both of us.
[Chris after country and John after country name] - Each of us traveled to this country, but did our own separate itineraries.
[Only Chris or John after country name] - Only Chris or John traveled to this country.

David was kind enough to host me for a week or so and now Tony and Tim have been gracious enough to let me stay at their mansion for a few weeks while I sort things out, literally and figuratively, I stored much of what I had left in their basement. I have access to their 12-MB cable connection, so I've been trying to stuff the previous years of my life into a PC and plan my future ones in SE Asia. I've been visiting friends, co-workers and people from my current and former churches.

I'm in the process of selling the family home in Boston (Scituate), which will hopefully will go through by the end of March. I'll be in Scituate from March 13th until April 3rd.

I'm still not sure if I'll be working until I leave for SE Asia or if I'll be traveling across the USA to visit friends, relatives and national parks.

People ask me how it feels to be back, well it feels very comfortable to be back here, but I'm not staying. So it's different. I'm still living out of a backpack and figuring things out as I go. It's pretty much just as it was while I was traveling, except a lot more comfortable. I feel a lot more relaxed than I did before I started the trip. Not because it was such a relaxing "vacation", it's just the opposite. After having my mother die from cancer, traveling on my own in some pretty remote places, having $2,200 worth of stuff stolen and always having to figure every detail of where and what to eat, where to stay, how to get there and who I could trust, the kind of things I have to deal with here seem pretty easy. I'm thankful to the friends that helped me during the trip and who are helping me now by supporting me, in many different ways, as I prepare to live in SE Asia.

If you want to get in touch with me by phone, please send me an email and I'll send you my phone numbers.

Scituate, Massachusetts - USA

I returned on January 26th to Atlanta via a business class seat on a jet from Johannesburg. My thanks to Tony for providing me a buddy pass for the flight! I'm in Scituate now to take care of affairs related to the family home and to visit with relatives. I'm also trying to determine whether to sell or rent the house.

I'm working on photos and blog entries for posting to the web site for Egypt and Africa. I will be returning to Atlanta on the 13th of February and will probably be there for about three weeks or so.

It's nice to be back in the comfort of the USA. Because everything is so clean and nice in the USA I feel very privileged and I am in comparison to many of the people I've visited in other countries.

My long term plan is to move to southeast Asia. I plan to start in Cambodia, volunteering at an orphanage I visited in June and eventually move to Thailand continuing to do volunteer work.