Early last September the West Seattle Herald interviewed West Seattle fixture, B.J. Cummings, and her soon-to-turn 11 son, Colin as they prepared to take the year off and travel the world.

See story here: http://www.westseattleherald.com/2009/09/02/features/duwamish-river-env…

Cummings is known to many in West Seattle for her activism with the polluted Duwamish River and its negative effects on South Park residents, area wildlife, and Puget Sound. She was the director of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, or DRCC, for eight years prior to the year-long sabbatical she took for her dream trip that she said she had been planning since Colin was born.

Eight months and 16 countries later the "nomadic duo," as they call themselves, who may have out-paced Seattle-based travel guru, Rick Steves, flew home to Seattle from Budapest for three weeks to "charge their batteries,"and reunite with B.J.'s husband and Colin's father, Tom, they said. They will return to Europe in a about a week to camp in the French countryside, maybe have a look at Belgium, and conclude in the Emerald Isle before returning to the Emerald City.

The West Seattle Herald caught up with the lucky pair at Procopio Gelateria near Pike Place Market while Colin was throwing a curve ball at a puzzled employee ordering a spiced chocolate gelato in Italian.

In case you have not been following their trip on their blog and Facebook entries, which include numerous quality photos, B.J. and Colin left for Vancouver Sept. 19 and continued to, in order, Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Kenya, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Hungary. Tom, who works at Adobe in Fremont, joined them twice on the trip, first in Vietnam, and again in Greece and Italy.

Their trip of a lifetime will cost under $4,000 in bargain airfares for the two. They have steered clear of the Hilton, opting to stay with friends, family, including B.J.'s brother, Brian Dublin who lives in Switzerland, and as guests at no charge in private homes they find on couchsurfing.com where they feel they can better immerse themselves in the local culture and cultivate new friendships while traveling on the cheap.

"Colin has a stomach of steel," said B.J. "He never got sick from the local food. I only got sick once or twice and it was not that bad. I lost weight in Asia but put it all back on in Europe."

She said she takes issue with the "Lonely Planet Guide" that ranked Seoul, Korea, as one of 10 worst cities to visit.

"I was surprised with Soul," she said. She posted a photo of an enormous flower garden planted in Downtown Seoul on her blog. "I absolutely loved it. It is an incredible city. We stayed an extra 10 days there. They had my favorite food on the whole trip. Korea had a larger variety of raw fish dishes than Japan. And we enjoyed bulgogi, a beef dish in stews cooked with a hot pot. I haven't found such good Korean food back home. This trip has been very food-oriented. I've been taking cooking classes in almost every country we've visited.

"Last night we recreated the Cambodian national dish, 'amok,' I learned in a class there. And I was able to easily recreate an egg-wrapped Chinese dish here I have never seen in a local restaurant. Most cooking classes start out with a visit to the local market, and we take in the sights, smells, and scents and learn about the traditional food there. Some classes are based in schools, others in private homes. Most classes were small groups of people from all over and most classes were taught in English. I was surprised how universal English has become. This didn't used to be true. I traveled a lot before Colin was born."

Colin talked about wanting to sample fried tarantula in the West Seattle Herald's last article. His big opportunity ended badly.

Colin explained, "We were in Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital) and there were no insects for sale except mostly grubs and crickets. Then we found a street cart hitched up to a bicycle. The vender was selling tarantulas and cockroaches and 10 other types of insects and spiders. I was trying to decide what to order when I saw the vender look down the street, jump onto the bicycle and peddle away. Then right after that a cop car came down the street."

"The vender must not have had a license," said his mother. "Colin always takes a long time to decide what to eat. In this case, he couldn't make up his mind between biting into something that crunched or squirted."

They would have to wait until Kenya for bugs where they stayed with a friend of a mutual friend from Seattle who happened to have frozen ants with wings in her freezer that she offered to Colin after he recounted the Cambodian ordeal to her.

"It was bad, and tasted very burnt, and very nutty," Colin recalled.

More substantial than bugs, Colin became involved with an orphanage, also in Kenya, the Heart Children's Home. He and his mother volunteered for a week and he created a Facebook page for them.

While they were getting away from it all, there is one issue B.J. did not completely sever herself from, the future of the Duwamish River.

"I'm personally invested in what happens on the river," she said. "Traveling today, you don't have just email, but also Facebook, websites and Skype, so it has actually been very easy to keep current with what's going on (with the Duwamish cleanup effort) without it being a huge distraction from our travels. I was painfully aware of the announcements of the South Park Bridge closing. Hopefully in the future, the news I hear about the cleanup of the river will be more positive than that."

And what about the "Nomadic Duo" getting on each other's nerves?

Colin's mother weighed in. "After eight months, not a day has gone by that we have been separated, and we still like each other," she said, adding with a wide grin, "In fact, I might like him a little bit more than when we left. That's pretty cool."