After years of planning and preparation, the big day is almost here. I will be leaving the Twin Cities in just over a week and Christine & Tyler will follow five days later. Interlude is now berthed comfortably in Tivat, Montenegro and there are now less than three weeks before our long-awaited adventure finally begins.

These past several weeks have been full of major family milestones. Tyler celebrated his graduation from high school, Peter and Sonja delivered a darling grand-daughter (our first!) and Marnie and Andrew will be married just days before we depart. Meanwhile, packages have been arriving daily and several suitcases full of supplies and spares for Interlude are piling up in my closet. The buzz of activity around the house has been constant and I suspect it will take us at least a few weeks onboard before we will truly begin to settle into a more relaxed and carefree pace.

Our "plan" (which has already evolved considerably and likely will continue to) is to spend the next four months exploring Greece and Turkey before returning home for the Holidays. We'll be back onboard by mid March, 2013 and will be gradually working our way West through the Med with the intent of being in the Canary Islands by early November. Interlude will then cross the Atlantic as part of the 2013 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers and it's very possible that we'll be celebrating Christmas in the Caribbean that year. We'll spend the winter months in the Islands and after that, the plan is ... well, there really isn't one yet! Interlude will either head North to the U.S. East Coast or perhaps head to South America before hurricane season cranks up. All of this is, of course, subject to change once we adapt to the new lifestyle aboard and have sufficient time to assess how the realities of cruising life compare to "the dream".