For those unfortunate folks who have never had the chance to visit Oregon or Washington, PNW stands for the “Pacific Northwest” – this is arguably one of the most beautiful parts of our world.

Our journey from Avignon began on October the eighth, it took us to Dijon in the wine country of Burgundy, on to Kaiserslautern in Germany, then a week in Paris, two nights each in London and Chicago, four nights in Mukilteo, three nights near Greenlake in Seattle, then our drive to Portland – whew, I am exhausted just writing about it.

We spent about 18 hours driving, flights of eight hours and five hours, three hours on the Eurostar, multiple taxi and subway rides, so we are quite glad to be at our friend’s house in Portland, with no major travel in our immediate future.

Volcanic mountains are an iconic part of the PNW.

This week was Halloween, not as scary as next week’s election, but a good excuse for a bit of dark fantasy.

So much has changed since we left La Thebauderie in Normandy last July, this was our driveway for two-and-a-half years, ours was the road to the right.

This morning I sipped coffee from a cup I bought while we were in Paris, wrote in the journal I found in Geneva with the wonderful new Kolo brass fountain pen Tim gave me last night – a nice calm morning, perfect.

A few more people we saw as we walked the streets of Paris.

Today Tricia is posting photos and more about our drive from Dijon to Kaiserslautern, check it out. We are off to the grocery to pick up chicken and veggies, we get to cook for Tim and Lisa in their wonderful kitchen, trying out the new roasting pan Jim and Shirley gave us while we were with them in Mukilteo – we are so blessed to have such great friends.

Seeing our friends and knowing that we’ll see our daughter on Sunday makes leaving France, as hard as that was – and all of the travel we endured – well worthwhile.

Hope your week is going well, as always I am grateful for your support and your thoughts.