I'm sitting at the San Francisco International Airport, awaiting my flight down to Chile.  It's going to be a long trek.  San Francisco to Dallas, 3 hour layover.  Dallas to Santiago, 3 hour layover.  Santiago to Puerto Montt, taxi and boat to the island community of Isla Tenglo.  It will take about 28-30 hours, I imagine.

I'm looking forward to returning to Isla Tenglo and la Casa Roja.  I was here in 2015, on my first major trip after resigning from the corporate world.  I've timed my trip a bit better this year.  In 2015, I visited in late winter / early spring, and it was cold!  This time, I'm coming at the beginning of summer!  Yes!

Back home in San Carlos, I've had a crazy last 24 hours.  Even a crazy last week or so.  Here's a quick summary.

After my previous renters moved out, I made some minor repairs and touch-ups around the house.  I re-organized my offsite storage unit, and then paid movers to move the rest of my furniture into the storage unit.  It's fair to say my storage unit is FULL now, as is my backyard shed and my garage.  I'll look forward to this summer when I'm in the SF Bay Area teaching sailing, but can also spend some time sorting through (and throwing out) a portion of my belongings.

So now, with a nice clean house, I have been trying to rent it.  But no luck. People seem too busy with the Holidays to be in the rental market.  So I resorted to hiring a real estate agent to handle the process while I'm traveling.  

Unfortunately she'll be handling a few other things I wasn't able to take care of.  I wasn't able to sell my kitchen table and chairs.  We'll leave it for the next renter, or my agent will have to dispose of it somehow.  Worse, the night before leaving, I realized one of the bathroom sinks wasn't draining properly.  No problem, I thought.  I removed the "P" or "U" pipe below the sink and cleaned it out.  Hmmm, still wasn't draining properly.  The plug was further downstream.  Not the end of the world.  But then, when I tried to put the "P" or "U" pipe back, THAT started leaking.  Ugh.  Now I really need a plumber.  It's not that big a deal, just a nuisance since I'll be out of the country, without cell service, trying to coordinate repairs.  Hopefully my agent can help a bit wit the logistics.  

So my night before leaving, I was a bit stressed because of these dilemmas above.  PLUS, the normal stress of trying to figure out what to pack, what not to pack.  For this trip, I opted to pack a bit "heavier" than normal.  I'll be doing some manual labor, so I brought work gloves, work boots, and overalls.  I hope to be doing some sailing, so I also brought my foul weather gear, sailing boots, and my personal flotation device.  I also brought my multi-tool and knife which might be useful for either activity.  And of course I have my GoPro to document things.  I also decided to bring my big Nikon D750, but left the telephoto lens at home, opting only for my 50mm prime lens for this trip, as a way to save a little weight.  It's an experiment.  We'll see.  In Thailand, the Nikon's shutter froze; in Croatia, the Nikon slid off a seat and the telephoto lens shattered.  Both instances reminded me about the risk of bringing big expensive cameras on my type of traveling.  But, I'm going to try one more time.  

That's it for now.  I guess I'd better get to my gate so I can actually make this trip, not just write about it!  

Adios!