Traveling Couples’ {Digital} Dinner Party – October 2011

Welcome, friends, to our corner of the web!

On this, the first of October, we’re hosting our first digital dinner party as a way to extend hellos and exchange stories with fellow travelers we’ve met through Twitter. So, without further ado…

Friends, foods, and table talk from travels around the world.
(For visitors unfamiliar with the back story, see our #RTWdinnerparty page.)

{Meet and Mingle} So…we’re cheating! We’re supposed to introduce ourselves by name, but we have about a week left of going stealth since the travel-cat’s not quite out of the bag here at home. If anyone really wanted to figure out who we were, it’d be pretty easy…but we’ll keep the mystery going for kicks. (And as a way to honor the relationships we have with employers who don’t yet know we’re leaving town…)

We’re B&T:
Full names disclosed by this time next week! (Well, maybe not middle names, but you get the gist.)

We were both born and raised in Oregon’s beautiful Willamette Valley. My (B’s) great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Etienne Lucier, set out from Montreal, Canada in the early 1800s to explore the Pacific Northwest and make his living as a traveling fur-trapper (pre-dating the infamous Oregon Trail). He eventually settled in the French Prairie of the Northern Willamette Valley, married a native American woman, cleared land, planted crops, and in the history books became known as the “first farmer of Oregon.” Years later, I grew up on a farm in the country, not too many miles from his original homestead, and as an adult, now living in the city of Portland, I carry my love of family legacy and of the land into my work as a landscape architect.

T’s family came across the country from the Midwest, and he, too, grew up in the Willamette Valley surrounded by big-hearted communities living in small towns. He works in a job providing social services to homeless populations and is no stranger to uncovering people’s stories of life and heartbreak, hopes and dreams, struggles and breakthroughs.

Our roots at home run incredibly deep. As we set out to venture together beyond the bounds of Oregon territory, we’ll carry with us the pluck and spirit of our ancestors and the blessing and encouragement of many dear family and friends, and we’ll look forward to encountering the world and its people: landscapes, legacies, and all.

{Dinner Specialty} We’re bringing the Main Course to this month’s Dinner Party, and If we could truly have you over for a feast, we would serve a repeat of our 2006 wedding meal: masterfully grilled Pacific Northwest Salmon and Prime Rib.

And, of course, if we could provide a venue, it’d be one of the most beautiful spots on earth: my {B’s} family’s home… Look! It’s even set up for us. (No, not really. Wedding pictures circa 2006 — but we could rig up something similar for you travel blogging friends. Maybe one giant rough-hewn wooden farmhouse set in the lawn, with white lights in the trees and seats around the fire pit and hours to pass the time telling stories…?)

And speaking of telling stories…

{Table Talk} Updates on our recent travel(planning) escapades:

The ever-ticking clock continues reminding us of the soon coming adventure and the frightful list of things to do before January 5th arrives.

We’ve been hard at work spending extra hours each day making dents in the per-departure to-do list (a list that partially includes the following: continue earning money for the savings account, pare-down-pare-down-pare-down, remain calm, finish up travel vaccines, book an apartment in Buenos Aires, finish overdue projects around the house, remain calm, revel in the excitement of seeing bank statements aligned with pie-in-the-sky goals scratched into 2007/8/9/10 notebooks, bring our plans to friends and family for wisdom and prayer, jump for joy when the countdown app finally revealed less than 100 days to launch, cherish time with our loved ones, remain calm, etc., etc., remain calm).

And then there are the ongoing reminders that keep us working together and working on our attitudes: Just tonight, we tried jamming an altogether-too-large desk into an altogether-too-small Camry in an effort to transport said piece of furniture to its appointed home at our friends’ place. No go. Turned and carried the whole thing back upstairs. Thwarted by an altogether/impossibly-too-small-car-door-frame. Bit my tongue. Chose to laugh. C’est la vie.

Not the first time, and certainly not the last that plans and logistics don’t quite shape up the way we’d imagined. But the experience is in the attitude.

We’re about to spend a great many more hours together, tackling challenges, reveling in adventures, eating good food, sending postcards home to dear hearts, and sharing our stories from the wide world of travel.

Wish us luck, and we’ll keep you posted from the road!

Thanks for reading, and thanks to our Twitter friends for taking part; it’s such a pleasure to meet our fellow travel comrades!

Cheers,
B&T

October 2011 #RTWdinnerparty link-up:
We’ll continue adding links below as additional #RTWdinnerparty posts are published.

@twoOregonians (Main Dish) Pacific Northwest Grilled Salmon
@GQtrippin (Vietnamese Feast) Roasted Suckling Pig, Peking Duck, BBQ Spare Ribs, and more!
@luggageinhand (Dessert) Bougatsa: Greek Pastry
@backpackforever – (Side) Migas: Tex-Mex Specialty
@CaptainandClark – (Dessert) 호떡 (ho-dduk) and bungeobbang (붕어빵)
@twoyuppies – (Side + Beverages) Burgushi & Napa Valley Vodka

Interested in participating in the next link-up?
Head to the Traveling Couples’ {Digital} Dinner Party & @RTWdinnerparty on Twitter for details and updates.