Plan360

Another day, another skatepark! We're at old home, Sonoma, CA. Visiting my mom & Opa in lovely Glen Ellen. Early morning skate in 37 degrees. At least it's sunny!

It's hard to explain - just visit Meow Wolf if you find yourself in or near Santa Fe!

Dunes @ Death Valley Duncan having fun on the dunes. Good night!

Death Valley to Mojave, CA We spent last night at hot springs in Tecopa at the edge of Death Valley- it was great to dip in the natural springs - we're feeling rejuvenated. Today we crossed Death Valley. Stunning! The highlight was standing at the lowest spot in the US - Badwater Basin (282 feet below sea level) and Duncan tumbling down sand dunes. PS: we've been in low wifi areas the last few days so there maybe some dup posts. Sorry. Also - the last 2 months all of our posts have been coming through Mark's new FB page. If you missed any - you can take a look at Plan360.tumblr.com C

Onward…. Yesterday we left Phoenix and are headed to Death Valley. Beautiful drive. The day included a stop at another skate park. This time in Kingman, AZ. That makes 10 scooter parks in 20 days! Along the way we unexpectedly saw signs to Hoover Dam so we took a quick, night time visit to the Dam. Who knew it was even open at 8pm! Cool. We finished the drive with a quick swing through the Las Vegas Strip. It takes almost full circle since the real Eiffel Tower was our first stop near 9 months ago! Good night, C

Pima Air & Space Museum + The Boneyard We took a day trip to Tucson to tour Pima. It's one of the world's largest non-government funded air museums. It has about 300 aircraft over 80 acres. The nearby Boneyard holds over 4,000 aircraft. Very cool place.

Phoenix, AZ Great week in Phoenix continued with a hike on Camelback Mountain. Duncan got to re-visit his favorite spot in AZ - KTR indoor trampoline/skatepark/parkour gym. So cool!

Let the road trip begin.... We snuck in & out of Boulder in one day to pick up our car and continue the year's travel. We'll finish out our adventure with a month of touring the West from Arizona to California to Utah and finally back home in March. Our quick Boulder stop included a stay with Duncan's BFF (thanks & the banana pancakes were amazing), an after school visit to D's old school to see his buddies and errands to get ready to take off. As you might imagine our small RTW packs only had beach wear so getting jackets and jeans was a high priority. The nice part is we have the luxury of some space to travel out of the back of the car - sweet! Part of the West trip is a tour of scooter/skate parks. We hit 3 while in FL last week and 2 today in Pueblo, CO & Walsenberg, NM. We finished the day with the most amazing sunset as we drove into New Mexico. Lovely.

New skills, Venezuelan Arepas (yum!) & the cousins No visit to my brother's house would be complete without trying a crazy new activity (he's responsible for my Crossfit addition). This time it was boxing class at Title Boxing. Duncan gave it a try too! Fun! Lots of time to play with the cousins - roller hockey, beach time, arts & crafts and lots of scooter & skate parks.

We're definitely missing our peeps! Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Homeward Bound After 8 months abroad, we're heading home. Our tenants found a house of their own, so we move back in March 1st. We leave Kuala Lumpur tonight, spend a day in Osaka tomorrow and 10 hours later, we arrive in LA. After spending a couple of weeks in Florida with family, we're going to finish with a month-long driving trip out West. As much as we're looking forward to being in our home again and sleeping in our own beds, I'm going to miss living light with just my 40 liter bag and 18 pounds of essentials. Other than my mountain bike, I don't miss anything.

Last days, last dives in Thailand. Although the water was a little murky, we had fun getting to the reef in this James Bondesque propeller-of-death boat. See https://youtu.be/nZIyMD46M-U

$7 haircuts! Outrageous! Our cuts today in Phuket have been the most expensive in 6 months. We're anticipating sticker shock when we return to the states, so this will be the last barber visit until 2018. Speaking of barbers, my favorite haircut on the trip was from a narcoleptic guy in Goa, India. He literally fell asleep three times while cutting my hair. I had to catch him and keep him from falling over. It was worth the price though-75 cents!

Travel in southeast Asia

Koh Phayam, Thailand I swear our bearded neighbor is Robinson Crueso! This island, a stones throw from Burma, seems lost in time. Our beach hut has no hot water, no wifi, but electricity from 6-10 pm! And some awesome swings. We've been whiling away our time here SUPing, surfing and building crab holes in the sand. And, reading a book every day or two.

We were hoping to see the worlds largest and stinkiest flower here in Khao Sok-the Rafflesia Arnoldi, or Corpse flower. But, alas, we were a few weeks early for it's blooming. I'm not sure if we were lucky or unlucky.

This is thought to be the oldest rainforest on earth, at 160 million years old. The palm-sized spider looked like it just climbed out of the Jurassic.