Planning Stages...

This is where I live now.  I'm living in a half-decent apartment uptown Dallas now.  This whole process is made easier by the fact my job sends me traveling fairly frequently.  Dallas actually is a good city - it took me awhile to be convinced of that.  The people are friendly, the weather can be pretty nice (with the exception of this wet spring), and everything is cheap cheap cheap.  But it doesn't have the mountains, ocean, clean air, or open-mindedness I grew up with in Portland.  And that's what I miss.  I'll get back someday, but there's a lot I've got to see before settling down permanently.

The obvious problem with Dallas is that there's no culture.  It could be in California, Idaho, Florida - anywhere.  There's nothing distinguishing about it.  Strip malls galore, chain restaurants everywhere, nothing too unique.  I spent four years in Fort Worth (about 30 minutes west of Dallas), and it truly is "where the west begins".  Downtown FW was laid in cobblestone, saloons all over, cops riding on horseback - now that's Texas.  Dallas tries to be a Los Angeles or NYC - trendy.  But it's not quite there.

Dallas actually is a good city - it just took me awhile to be convinced of that.

The good news is that gas is cheap, my rent is cheap, and even beer is cheap ($1 beer night at about 4 different places around town is hard to beat).  So in the end it's worth it to be able to save ... to get the heck out!

My boyfriend Aaron and I are planning on taking a year to go explore.  We're starting in Latin America, and then we'll make up the rest as we go along.  We're hoping to head out with $10,000 each, which shouldn't be too difficult considering we're both over halfway there and not planning on leaving until February '08.  I already have a couple guidebooks so I actually spend a lot of time planning our course that way.  However, I know from experience that it doesn't matter how much I plan - it will all change once I start talking to people.