Getting ready to TRAVEL!!!



In just over a week we will push off on an adventure that will take us to the other side of the world, leaving winter behind and all the duties associated with Winter in the North.  Our menagerie of pets will be farmed out or cared for , the plants will be watered, the mail will be collected, the bills will be paid and the house will be cared for sans heat, sans lights, sans everything.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our son, Bob, bundled up his family last March and hauled them off to New Zealand to a new career and a life adventure for him, Alison and the children.  Now they reside in Christchurch enjoying earthquakes, learning a new language ('Ave ye seen my dick? = Have you seen my deck?) and eating fish and chips with greater regularity than cardiac health would dictate.

New Zealand happens to be in the southern hemisphere and is not really that far from the South Pole where Scott had a rather unpleasant winter camping experience.  New Zealand is inhabited by Englishmen, pretending it is just like England, but with all the seasons backwards and aboriginal people, the Maori, who are similar to the Tahitians except they wear some really nasty tattoos.

The trip presents some real challenges.  We have not traveled this far together before.  Will we get blood clots in our legs on the 14 hours trans-Pacific flight?  When we lived in Canada, I was a fairly proficient smuggler bringing in large jugs of gin and whiskey and a years supply of children's clothing from Sears in Fargo. But this is a different era and a different country.  And flying!!!  It is a world of the past where the security girl pulled my Buck hunting knife out of my carry on and said, "Whoa, That's big!" and then tossed it back in!  Now you can't even carry on a nail file or a Gillette razor or shaving cream (!).  And you really have to be careful what you have in your underwear!  And no liquids.  I think you can carry on a 3" by 5" piece of moistened sponge that you can suck on to prevent dehydration.

Well, air travel isn't what it was, but I guess that's progress.  People used to "dress" when  they traveled by plane ( train or ship, for that matter) but now everyone looks like Greyhound passengers that got on at Folsom.  More comfortable, I guess.

At this point there really isn't much to say about this trip except that it is our intention to go.  It will involve driving, flying from Madison to SFO, a few days in SFO and then a long -mostly at night- trip to Christchurch via Aukland.  If I can remain unconscious most of the way and be spared the in-flight movies, I think it won't be too bad.  We'll see.