by Michael

“You could travel the world, but nothing comes close to the golden coast”

-Katy Perry

After more than 11 months of international travel, we safely returned to the United States on March 28, 2017. On our flight from Taipei to Los Angeles we had an unexpected night-time view of the San Francisco Bay Area, which I have tried to make more visible with filters:

Not the best photo, I know. But it was a nice view of our home after almost a year away.

This leaves us with three weeks to prepare for our hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. We are already doing practice hikes with our gear and are busy packing food resupply boxes. We will have more posts about this later.

Bars. So many bars.

We know that we are behind on the blog. We are working on a post about diving in Coron, Philippines. After that we do plan to write about Taiwan, where we spent the last three weeks of our trip, although it may be more abbreviated than usual. We also plan to write at least one post about preparing for the PCT. Our plan is to continue blogging about our adventures on the PCT here, although we’re still figuring out what that will look like. Our Instagram feed is up to date as of this post, so you can see pictures of us filling boxes with non-perishable food.

Our cats: Penny (left) and Sierra (right, in box).

But it’s not just food, cats, and boxes. We are also hiking to test out gear, break in shoes, and do a last little bit to get ourselves in shape.

This is Bishop’s Peak. We climbed to the top with full packs.

Here is the view from near the top of Bishop’s Peak. Much more green than usual.

For the time being, we are staying with our parents in Arroyo Grande, California (sorry Fog City Run, I won’t be there on Wednesdays). We’ve happily reunited with our cats who are overjoyed at the sheer number of boxes lying around the house as we prepare for our hike. With less than two weeks to go before our PCT start date, our “to do” list is a bit overwhelming, but we know that it will get done (or it won’t and that will be fine too).

It’s crazy to think that after a year on the road, we’re back full circle and preparing for our next adventure. There’s more to come in the coming weeks.