CARGO HOLD

Biarritz Beach, September 2006

For those of you not in Seattle, but instead somewhere on the East Coast, know that we had a plan that would involve a winding trip down the coast before coming to Seattle. In an attempt to reduce our carbon emissions footprint, we had decided to take a freighter home. As in a big barge. Across the Atlantic Ocean. We had researched it and it costs more than a plane, but feeds you for the ten day journey, and is about as much as business class plane fare. We would go from Liverpool to Philadelphia and then take trains to visit folks and then take a train across the US to Seattle. (This bit was still unresearched and may have turned out to be financially infeasible anyway) Then we could have written articles about it for green hippie journals looking for clever ways to beat the guilt and paid for it all out of our new career as eco-travel writers.

Unfortunately, in the kind of luck we've had in delay after delay and general uncertainty this autumn, we found out that I would not be staying here for a long-term job on THE DAY AFTER we could have booked passage on the last freighter heading east before winter.

So, not only will we not be lounging around reading books and playing fiddle in the middle of the ocean, but we will also not be able to visit East Coasters on the way home. I must admit that I hadn't really thought about how cold and miserable it might be in the middle of the ocean in November/December, and it may all be for the best that we couldn't do it now. We're also likely to be a bit unsettled and anxious during that in-between homes time, so you'd probably rather see us later anyway.