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whined about the lack of burritos in my diet—Jordan, the lack of French bread and Nutella. When September and Katrina pulled up a few moments later, we started to discuss our options: find a place to stay now, or continue down the road a bit more. We pulled out a map to investigate our options. The English are among the most friendly on the planet. We found that standing on the side of the road perusing a map was all that was required to obtain assistance.
    As if on cue, Mr. and Mrs. English-Person in the Ford Anglia pulled over to ask if they could help us. “So, where is home for you?” they asked.
    â€œWell, for the next year or so, home is where our stuff is,” I told them. “We’re trying to decide where we want to call home for the night. Is there a campground nearby?”
    â€œWhy, there’s a very nice campground just a mile or so down this road. Sandy Balls.You can’t miss it.”
    I tried to stifle a laugh, but there was too much momentum behind it. Trying to keep it in would have resulted in my eyeballs popping out or something equally nasty happening. “That sounds like someone had an accident at the beach!” But something was lost in translation, as they just gave me a blank stare.
    Just like that our mantra was born: Home is where your stuff is . And with a name like Sandy Balls, how could we pass up the chance to call it home for the night?
    â€¢ • •
    Southern England seemed to be landscaped by committee—the hedges were all trimmed to regulation and the flower beds all had a Photoshop quality to them. As we pressed south, we stayed on the back roads that a century earlier served horse-drawn carriages. Homes with thatched roofs came to the very edge of the narrow lane, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine a hitching post to serve the travelers’ horses passing through. Every village came with a High Street, which back home would be Main Street.
    As we made our way from village to village, we would roll in on High Street, park our bikes in the center of the roundabout, and look for lunch. Villages take great pride in the roundabout on High Street, and it would invariably be outfitted with benches, an arbor, and of course the regulation landscaping. Lunch, however, proved maddeningly elusive some days. We had a difficult time remembering the English definition of a village or town. Our definition, however, was easy to remember: A village does not have grocery stores or ATMs. Towns do.
    Ten days after we left the suburbs of London we arrived in the port city of Poole, where we could catch a ferry to France. It was a major mental milestone.
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    John’s Journal, June 21
    â€¦ that isn’t to say the kids haven’t been getting on my nerves. Yesterday was a good example. We came straight down from Fordingbridge to Christchurch, and then cut over to Poole, which meant leaving the quiet roads for fifteen miles of cycling on two heavily loaded tandems through bustling city traffic. We got lost so many times as we crossed town and every time we stopped to look at a map the kids would start to play this game where each would try to touch the other one, without being touched in return. Aarrgghh! It is difficult enough to have a conversation with September over the roar of traffic, and hold up a tandem all while under the stress of not getting clipped by a bus, but when you add a stupid, silly “touching”game and a spasmodic stoker, it was tough not to scream at the kids. But cycling through a city the way we did today isn’t much fun, especially for the kids, so I didn’t yell at them for playing it. That’s a start, isn’t it?
    We decided we needed a P-Day (Preparation Day) to do laundry, write letters, and just do something fun. And no museums or cathedrals allowed .
    Starting out meant getting adjusted to our new surroundings, our new routine, and to being together all the time. Things weren’t always as we