A Writer's First Blog Post

I've been talking about starting up a blog for a couple of years now, but it's been all talk, no action. My more adventurous half Steve started up a blog for us to share in advance of our trip to Peru in September 2005. Steve was quite diligent in keeping the site up-to-date with our various adventures, and it turns out that he has a very natural blog-writing style.

As someone who has a university degree in journalism and is a professional writer and editor, I am embarrassed to admit that I did not contribute a single word to the site. Instead, I was more focused on the fun stuff -- taking "the perfect shot" to go with the blog posts, and maintaining our photo site on Flickr (which, by the way, is now up to 7,200 photos and counting).

I officially got the boot from our "shared" blog site about a year ago. I was told that I didn't deserve any of the credit because I wasn't doing any of the work. Fair enough. Steve was also wanting to change the focus of the blog because he was concocting some more ambitious racing plans -- including some at the international level.

So, I've finally started a blog of my own. Why now? For starters, I have half-joked for quite some time that my next career will be as a travel writer and photographer. I figure there is no time like the present to start giving it a try. I've been rapidly adding new countries under my travel belt in recent years, and it looks like this trend will continue in 2007. In addition, I can't rely on Steve to chronicle all of my travel adventures online because we aren't always travelling together. Those who follow Steve's blog know that he is planning quite an ambitious trip to New Zealand later this year. This trip is not a recent concept -- in fact, on our first date in 1999 he warned me that he would be taking this trip. I'm happy that he's finally headed for New Zealand, even if it did take him eight years!

I would have loved to have grabbed a backpack after university and headed to Europe for a summer. But I started my first full-time job while I was finishing up my degree, and I quickly became wrapped up in the demands of work. It was 2.5 years after graduation when I embarked on my first journey outside of North America (with the exception of a high school summer exchange trip to Japan in 1991). It was a last-minute one-week trip to Margarita Island and Canaima National Park (Angel Falls) in Venezuela with Steve. I don't think I even owned a backpack at the time. Since then, we've been fortunate enough to visit a number of countries together -- Switzerland (2003), Peru (2005), Cuba (2006), and Argentina (2006). We've also logged a number of trips in North America to visit family and friends, and also to play tacky tourist (something we have become quite good at in recent years!)

Unfortunately, Steve is unable to take any vacation time in the lead up to his New Zealand trip, and he has been my only international travelling companion in recent years. I suppose I could sit back and wait until Steve is ready to travel with me again. Instead, I've developed a major case of the travel bug and am itching to see the world.

We did our first separate international vacations this February -- completely unintentionally. I was off to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico to celebrate Mel and Dave's wedding. Steve would have loved to come, but couldn't swing the time with work. Then he accepted a new job and the perfect window to take some vacation emerged. Guess when! It was, of course, the week we were going to Mexico. The problem was that he couldn't find a seat on any flights to Cancun from either Ottawa or Montreal. He briefly thought about staying in Ottawa, but then opted to take advantage of a last-minute deal to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic to do some biking.

My next trip -- coming up at the end of April -- began as one of those "wouldn't it be fun to" conversations with a friend late last year, and then a spur-of-the-moment "what are we waiting for -- let's do it" decision in mid-February. I was keen to see parts of the world that are lower on Steve's travel wish list, and my friend Tianne was looking to take her dream trip to Vietnam but was missing a travel buddy. There have been several signs since that this trip was meant to be, including some very cheap airfare through JCB Travel in Ottawa (thanks to Chris Foo for recommending both the company and Yalin, the travel agent). Tianne and I are considering this our 30th birthday trip. Happy birthday, T!

More on this trip in a separate blog post. Stay tuned.