We pick up the timeline the night we left Utah—hearts pounding, eyes puffy—after handing over not just our house but nearly everything inside it. “We walked out of that house with everything still in it and said goodbye.” From a salt-breeze cleanse at the Bonneville Salt Flats to a shady border-town dinner, we caravaned west, dropped Britton’s gongs at Spirit Camp on the NorCal coast, then muscled 18 checked bags and three kids through LAX to make our flight to Bali by a breath. There, life re-taught us how to listen. A traditional Joglo, flying termite swarms at sunset, gecko poop “on schedule,” monsoon thunder that scared our toddler, black-sand beaches, and a month-long Yoga Teacher Training became our rite of passage. “It was an initiation and we did not know what we were getting into, but we made it through.”

We explored the island as spiritual seekers—sacred springs, river-meets-sea offerings under a full moon, and worldschooling in village life—while also wrestling with Bali Belly, parasites, and the realization that Bali wasn’t home. A clear omen sealed it in a bamboo treehouse at Christmas: this chapter was medicine, not destination. As soon as we surrendered that, the next timeline snapped into place—Carolee’s long-spoken vow to spend her 40th in France, and then (as if plucked straight from Britton’s prayer the night before) an Instagram invite to a two-week spiritual pilgrimage in Egypt with private temple rituals. We met the guide for tea in Bali and said yes. By the time we left the island, we’d shed 12 bags (18 → 6) and a thousand assumptions. The lesson we keep living: “you can travel in the unknown and be led totally.”

Other things we talked about

Key Highlights