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Half the Money Double the Imagination Bacon, eggs, my version of baked tomato, toast from a day-old baguette with butter from Isigny and fig jam. Abigail sits at the table patiently observing the preparation. I can feel her objection coming, she won't eat the tomato, doesn’t even want it on her plate. She verbalizes; I cajole and imagine I am teaching, “I need it to balance the plate for color” I say. In my mind this is a sensible justification, to her tomatoes are just unnecessary. Ah the advantages of being twelve. In the end she allows for the tomato’s disagreeable attendance; but only when I agree to eat it so that her plate can be cleared. There is significance in that, but I miss it until now. Making breakfast is a study in adaptability; the kitchen is small. Not much counter space and really only one acceptable pot; a medium sized non-stick pan in which I must cook everything, one dish at a time, figuring out how to keep each dish warm while I prepare the next. I am not annoyed by the inconveniences like I might be at home. I accept the situation for what it is. I am peaceful and totally in this moment. I am doing something I love, for people I love, and I hope it will make for a glorious start to our day’s adventures. I am also pleased that I can pull it off. Mostly I am happy to cook for my fellow travelers, Sandra my wife of twenty-five years and Abigail my daughter. Everything comes out right, a proper breakfast and we eat. My life is simple, feed people you love and be in interesting places. My wife is online researching the town we are in. Cassis is a stunningly picturesque town on the Mediterranean coast between Nice and Marseille famous for its cliffs and sheltered inlets. For me it’s another moment in a dream, I don’t need to know where I am, I find all aspects of travel remarkable in some way. Her motivations for the online study - don’t be a tourist, be engaged in the traveler experience; I agree. She says she could do a better job of living that thought; I agree again. I am pleased to hear her musings on living life more fully, especially as it relates to our trip. Unfortunately, my desire will not make up for the uncertainty she feels and on this trip at least she will not share in these moments. * * * There are three things I know about myself; I like to learn, I tend towards the unconventional, and I love to meet new people. In June 2011 I quit my job, packed up my life and took my wife and daughter to Europe to try a lifestyle we would later learn to call Vagabonding. I saw it as a solution to “quiet desperation”, my hope was that it would last forever. For me the preparation for the trip was a to-do list I began making about nine months prior to our departure. At the top of that list was my inspiration “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain. I had announced to Sandra I could not see myself in my job for another five years, let alone to retirement. I was fifty-three and needed to make a change, now! I knew that our life in Salt Lake City would be untenable if we gave up my income, but also knew ways we could live on less. I understood Sandra’s lack of an alternative plan and objection to mean she agreed with me and would prepare similarly and mentally for the new life I was proposing − I have been wrong many times in my life.