Today, I’m having a case of déjà-vu.

When I went to Scotland in 1998, I did a crazy day trip to the Orkney Islands from Inverness. It involved a very long round-trip bus ride (six hours total, if I recall correctly) and two jaunts across a very choppy and grey North Sea. This trip resulted in two of my clearest memories from my month in Scotland. The one that’s relevant to this post was when we were going up the west side of one of the islands and the driver stopped to let us look out at the stormy conditions over the water. He said to us, in all seriousness, “To the left is the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop, Newfoundland, Canada!”

Tonight, I’m sitting on the west coast of Vancouver Island, staring out at a wild blue ocean crashing onto a rocky jetty and all I can think is that all that lies ahead of me is the Pacific Ocean. Next stop, Japan.

More to follow…