After several lengthy discussions, Brian has generously allowed me to share his blog. He seems to think he’ll have “editorial review” of everything I write. But we’ll see about that…
At any rate, we have just 4 days until we begin our trip and after the last few stress-filled weeks, I’m ready for a [...]
Our first stop is Zihuatanejo, Mexico to see our good friends Kevin and Natalie tie the knot. Kevin and I race sports cars with the SCCA and have shared a 2-car trailer for the past two seasons. Zihautanejo is a small town near Ixtapa on the Pacific coast. Our hotel has [...]
This is what I’ve been waiting for since we got here: taqueria showdown! Although they advertised four kinds of meats, they only had carne asada but the taste was great. I also liked the assemble-it-yourself approach to the onions, cilantro, salsa and fresh limes. Still, if this place was across the street [...]
Here’s what has happened since leaving Zihuatanejo, Mexico on Sunday morning:
Arrived at LAX
Found no commuter flights would put us in SFO before our flight back to LAX for our connection to Tokyo and eventually Auckland
Brainstormed genius idea of renting a car and hauling ass up I-5
Rented car and hauled ass up I-5
Arrived in San Mateo [...]
Tokyo is nuts. We arrived at the Narita airport at 3pm, navigated customs, arranged for a hotel and caught a limo bus into Tokyo. Working on very little sleep in the past few days, I know I nodded off at least a couple of times on the way in jerking upright once my [...]
We headed up north to visit another of Brian’s distant relatives, Anne and Phil Herbert. They raise calves on a 150 acre farm near the Bay of Islands, and they invited us to stay for a couple of days. On the way to Anne’s house, we drove through the Waipoua Forest and learned [...]
Obviously Kiwis don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and they rarely eat Turkey, so no traditional Thanksgiving meal for us. Instead, we “splurged” on Mexican food. In any other country, buying Mexican food is far from splurging. In fact when Jesse was unemployed, he consistently ate burritos at Taqueria Cancun because they were only $3. [...]
Welcome to the newest member of our family, our campervan. We picked her up in Christchurch and will be calling her home for the next month. Of course we had to give her a name, and after my first two suggestions were thrown out (Matilda and Jesus), we agreed on naming her Oprah. At [...]
On a map, the drive from Christchurch to Queenstown looks really far. It’s from one side of the country to the other but that’s California thinking. If you’ve ever rented a car (“hired” a car) in Europe and crossed three countries in an afternoon or driven across the Eastern seaboard and lost track [...]