A lot has happened in a short time. We have said goodbye to Yosemite, El Portal, and our Yosemite Institute family with mixed feelings of sadness and excitement looking forward. We spent an intense weekend doing trips back and forth to our lovely storage unit in Porterville, CA, spent many hours scrubbing our houses and sorting through everything we might want with us for the next seven months. Now that is all done and we have spent Christmas in Southern California, and now we are in Buffalo visiting Dan's family and spending New Years here. Then its back to So Cal for our last good-byes before we officially fly out!

Here is our rough plan for the next few months. Our primary goal is to learn Spanish. We will fly into Buenos Aires where we get to spend a week or two with Dan's friend Miguel who lives there. Then we will catch yet another flight down to southern Patagonia to do a couple backpacking trips. Next we will make our way north again, and find a city to settle down in for a few months. Based on recommendations from friends we are looking at either Barriloche (we hear it is like the Aspen of Argentina) or Mendoza (the Sonoma of Argentina). Once we figure out where we want to be, we will find an apartment, maybe take some spanish classes, maybe volunteer, or maybe find some sort of work. Then we will come back mid-July.

Right now Tamara is applying to Master's programs in Geology, and more specifically volcanology. She is applying to four different schools: University of Alaska - Fairbanks, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Michigan Technological University, and University of Buffalo. She is working hard on applications and should have them all in before we fly out on the 11th. Then it takes a couple months to hear back from them and make a decision.  All this will determine where we will be living when we get back.