"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Welcome to DelsJourney.  I hope to update this website every so often during the next 18 months as I travel around the world in order to keep my friends updated (and amused) on my current whereabouts.

As you may know, I was planning to leave Portland on April 1 for my trip around the U.S., but here it is April 5 and I'm still in the Northwest.  Oh well, so much for that idea.  However, I did leave my job at Parsons Brinckerhoff on my 10-year anniversary on March 19, as planned (and much to the relief of my co-workers, I might add).  Since leaving PB, I've been pretty busy getting ready for my big trip but, as I'm realizing, leaving for 18 months takes a lot of planning and preparation.  I probably won't leave Portland for my trip around the U.S. until at least mid-May, which will push my scheduled visits around the U.S. back a little, but I still plan to leave for Australia in mid-August.

Some news from the Photo Department: After shooting about 20,000 slides over the past 15 years, I went completely digital last week and bought a high-resolution digital camera.  It's a Canon D-30 and it takes all of my Canon lenses. It'll let me instantly post photos onto my website and I won't ever again have to pay for film or processing, which would've cost about $5,000 for this trip alone, and I won't have to carry 500 rolls of film with me overseas!  The best part, however, is that the images from this camera are a heckuva lot better than most digital cameras out on the market, and nearly as good as film, so I plan to shoot LOTS of pictures with it over the next 18 months -- some of which you'll see on this website.

By the way, I'm at my Dad's house now in Bellingham, Washington (about 5 hours north of Portland) visiting with him and my sister Doti.  I learned yesterday that I'll have to get a new transmission for my Toyota truck before taking off around the U.S.  That'll be $1,600 (yikes), but considering that this will be the first major work ever done on my 16-year old truck, I'm guess I'm pretty lucky.  Toyota trucks are tops.

Here are a couple of shots from my Dad's house.  I'm still new at this "website" thing, but I recently learned how to create photo thumbnails.  All the photos in this website will be thumbnails, so you can click on them if you want to see a larger version.

Above left:  My Dad last night with Doti's cat, Lila.

Above right:  The hills above Lake Whatcom this morning.  Hey, what's with the snow -- this is April!

Next News

April 19, 2001  (Bellingham, Washington)

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