Tom Blackadar and Marcia Johnson will share this blog to publish notes about our upcoming travels, which we call Rough and Ready Tours. Postings may be irregular, as we may drop off the grid for a month or more in places without electricity or internet access.

I have recently taken early retirement from the company where I have worked for almost 25 years. It’s been a great quarter century, but Marcia and I are now ready to do the many things we’ve been dreaming about but never had time to do. I doubt my break will be permanent, and I already have some ideas of what I might do when I get bored or run out of money. But for now, we’re off to parts unknown.

We have been living and working in Tokyo for a little over two years, and it’s been a great experience. Tokyo is a very livable city and we would be happy to come back (our expat friends predict it will take less than two years). It’s been a little sad to spend our last few weeks saying goodbye to our many friends, but we know we can always come visit.

So now we look forward. We leave our apartment in Tokyo this Friday, September 25 and will spend a few days hiking in the Japan Alps, weather permitting. And then, on September 29, we will fly via Singapore to Kathmandu. We have no fixed plan yet, but we expect to be trekking for most of October, November, and early December, the best season in Nepal. Our current plan is to fly back to the US on December 13 to spend the holidays with our family and friends, and then fly back to Asia on January 23.

We hope to stay in touch with all of our friends.