Education of a Wandering Family

I didn't start out liking the 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss but I ended up loving it. Tim and I don't have much in common but one thing is certain. We are both independent spirits. Except that while he's traveling the world shark diving and cage fighting I'm at home washing my hair with baking soda and baking sour dough bread. So I'm getting the idea from his book that maybe I could step my dreams and aspirations up a notch. Especially for my kids' sake.

Last October I blogged about the fact that Stranger wants to move South of the border so our whole family can learn Spanish. Back then it was kind of a joke but it's not a joke anymore. We are going to do it! When? Oh in about three years. We need time to pack and to potty train Sister Sweetness and then we're off. After about a year of learning Spanish we're going to buy a sailboat and sail around the world for a year. Or maybe we'll do both at the same time. I wonder if our food storage will fit on the boat.

I've been bugging Stranger about quiting the railroad for some time now. It's a very secure job with great benefits and a crappy schedule. You'll never know how crappy until you've lived it. (On call 24/7 with 28 days off a year) But when I talk about him quitting he says, "But I get to run trains!" If you quit you get to sail a boat with your family! If he wants to run trains when we get home he could always buy a 40 mile railroad line with a spare 50 million dollars or so.

So we're going to do it. Next summer he's going to get his skippers license and all of us are going to get scuba certified. Then the next year we will spend 28 days on a sailboat for a practice run and the year after that we will be off on our great learning adventure. Stranger says we'll have an extra room on the boat for guests if you want to visit. Who wants to sign up to take care of our chickens while we're gone?

The only real question I have is this...Can we get intenet in the middle of the ocean?

When I was talking to a friend of mine about our plans she told me about a documentary she had just watched - A remarkable story of a conventional family of five living a very unconventional life afloat. They look like a bunch of lunatics to me but the ocean should be big enough for more.