We screeched into Michigan with brake pads nearly gone, headlights barely functioning, and stomachs craving egg sandwiches and broccoli casserole.  The Smith family house was exactly what we needed and Jeff and Jackie kindly welcomed us and all of our dirty laundry with open arms.  By the time we left Michigan our brake pads were replaced, headlights rewired, clothes cleaned, and tummies full of delicious food–thanks Jackie and Jeff!

Of course, it wasn’t all work.  We spent plenty of time “Up North” at Higgins Lake cruising around on the boat, tubing, kneeboarding, and water skiing (which I discovered is the cheapest way to get a high powered enema).  We also managed to squeeze in a few days at Sleeping Bear Dune National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan.

With the end of our trip looming overhead, we also started to think about the inevitable–finding work.  So, in the midst of all the fun and games we managed to apply for a job of sorts.  In the spirit of adventure and up-for-anything attitude that has led us halfway around the world, we tried out for a TV show–The Amazing Race.  Our cousin Alex told us that we would be awesome for this show, and then by a stroke of luck there happened to be an open casting call in Michigan just days later.  It didn’t matter that we had never heard of the show or watched it.  We figured we’d trust our family’s advice and just go for it.  Stay tuned for an update on the job search!

We spent 3 nights and four days in the backcountry.  Two of our campsites were visited by bears–one almost certainly a grizzly.  We also saw elk, pronghorn, bison, pikas, mule deer, eagles, black bears and cubs, more wildflowers than either of us had ever seen and as many butterflies as well.  We crossed cold mountain rivers, twice had to run with our packs for about a mile each time to seek tree cover from lightning, and watched trees blow over all around us from the wind.  We honestly can’t wait to come back here!

One of the great things about New Zealand is that you’re never really that far from the ocean.  By the time we drove into Nevada we were a full day’s drive from the ocean, and landphobia was setting in.  Dry throat, dry and burning skin, visions of cool refreshing water on the horizon–all signs of landphobia.  How long would it take if we drove straight to Michigan and the refeshing waters of Higgins Lake?  When you start considering driving through the night to get to water in a car whose headlights go out every once in awhile you know that the fear of landphobia has a death grip on your decision making abilities.  We finally made it to Great Basin National Park, and the inevitable sign that says, “Most people see the Great Basin as a desolate landscape, but if you look closely it’s teeming with life.”  Why do places always phrase things like that.  It’s like saying, “You might think this place sucks but give it a chance.”

Great Basin is an incredible place–no apologies needed. And, yes, there are crystal clear streams running down from the snow covered peaks–and birds, butterflies, deer, wildflowers, etc.  We spent a few days there checking out 5,000 year old Bristlecone Pines, hiking the 13,063 ft Wheeler Peak, and enjoying a campfire for the first time in months.

Ken, Ellen and Timmy continued on to LA to visit friends while we headed out to Yosemite with my folks for a few days.  Wow, what a place.  Even though it was Fourth of July weekend and Yosemite Valley was a zoo, it’s still an incredible landscape.  There’s just something special about exposed granite domes that you can’t find in other areas.  And, we didn’t have to go far to avoid the crowds.  We stayed in a cabin near the Hetch Hetchy and went on a beautiful hike while seeing only a handful of people.  There were a number of fires burning in the park which made the air a bit hazy and picture taking a bit difficult.  And, it probably made it a bit harder for Joanie and I to keep up with my parents.  Whew, we put some miles under our feet!  I thought I had stopped growing years ago (at least vertically), but check out these family shots.

It’s been so fun meeting up with friends and family that we’re feeling an urge to get to Michigan, New York and New Hampshire to see everyone else.  But, we’ve got about 3 or 4 weeks of time to explore Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and wherever else we decide to go.

The West Coast is one of, if not the most unpopulated part of the country and the reason must be the healthy population of these blood thirsty biters.  West Coast blackflies make New England’s blackfly population seem like it is on the brink of extinction.  As long as you’re moving they aren’t much of a  bother, but the moment you stand still a black cloud descends upon you.  We got quite good at jumping in and out of the car as quickly as possible and skilled at killing the ones that managed to get into the tent or car with us.  As a result, Agy is in desperate need of some cleaning (not too different from her owners), and we probably can’t donate blood for another 56 days.  Since our surf guide for New Zealand says, “…West Coast surfing is a spooky experience. Firstly, the swell is nearly always big, in fact you’re almost always waiting for it to drop and clean up before heading out.  You will also be sharing the breaks with a wide range of marine life–many of which have big sharp teeth!  Combine this with extremely cold and often murky water, and you have a true Kiwi hardcore surf destination.”  We figured the blackflies provided enough bloodletting so we stuck to the mountains.

That said, we’re not actually sure that the blackflies were the worst thing we encountered.  Following an overnight trip to Welcome Flats Hut-a fantastic hike up to some hot pools and mountain views) we headed to Fox and Franz Glaciers.  The glaciers themselves are magnificent, and we really enjoyed the moments of sunshine that we had at Fox glacier.  At Franz, however, we took a short hike up to Sentinel Rock which gives a nice view of the glacier and valley.  We got to the viewpoint and not long after a bus load of tourists struggled up one by one, each huffing and puffing and saying almost exactly the same thing upon arrival, “I thought this was supposed to be a short hike.”  Now, I don’t know if this is common for people on bus tours as a way to cope with being so close to 25 other people, but after their passing the trail smelled like the very worst part of a department store. You probably know what that means–the perfume section.  The part of the store where in order to pass through with the same number of brain cells you had at the start you have to hold your breath for the duration.  I think these folks were suffering from perfume induced asthma.  We quickly ran for the car once again and continued north.

Next up was Pancake Rocks–another unique coastal rock formation with shows of crashing waves and blowholes.  Check out the pictures on Flickr.  We continued north to Nelson Lakes National Park–a place we wish we had more time and more sun to explore in.  And finally, we made it up to Wharariki Beach at the northwest tip of the south island.  The weather wasn’t great while we were there, but it’s a remarkable and rugged beach.  We owe Pete a huge thanks for the recommendation on Wharariki and Glenorchy as well.  Thanks Pete!  Your map and advice have been really helpful!

Currently, we’re in Nelson figuring what to do next, but it won’t be long before we leave the South Island behind and head back North to, hopefully, warmer weather.  We’re both ready to spend some more time exporing the North Island’s beaches, caves, lighthouses, surf spots, waterfalls, and whatever else we find on our way.  Next WWOOF site is a cheese farm in Eketehuna!

In the two weeks we had set aside for Fiordland, we had sketched out a pretty busy schedule for ourselves.  First up–the Milford Track which has been called “the greatest walk in the world” by National Geographic.  We had a day or so to hang around Te Anau and camp on the edge of Lake Te Anau before we took the boat ride to the start of the track.  It was nice to have a some time to dry out our gear from the previous week of rain, relax on the lake shore, and soak up the sun. Fiordlands is not typically a place that people go to soak up the sun.  On average, they receive about 7 meters of rain per year.  If you do the conversion to our system of measurement, that equals a shit ton of rain.  By the time we got on the track, the sun was out and it pretty much stayed out for the next 12 days while we were backpacking.

We ended up doing the Milford, Routeburn, Greenstone and Caples tracks before heading to Colac Bay and our next WWOOFing stint at the Pavilion restaurant.  I’ve got to wrap things up quickly here as internet time is short, but check out the new pictures on Flickr–they tell a pretty good story.  And, if I told you everything here then we wouldn’t have any stories to tell when we get home.

Just remember to ask us about Warren, our Routeburn Track mix-up, and all the gourmet food at the Pavilion.

Following our stint at Waiinu we headed inland (this was very hard to do) to check out Tongariro National Park.  Tongariro was the first national park in New Zealand, boasts one of the best day hikes in the country, and is home to a number of active volcanoes, including Mount Doom!  Of course, it’s not called Mount Doom, but it’s the volcano that was used for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies.  At last, we would have a chance to climb the mountain and cast the ring into the fiery…what would a blog about New Zealand be without at least one reference to Lord Of The Rings?  Or sheep.  So, in honor of stereotypical New Zealand here’s a sheep.

I’d love to include a picture of Mount Doom, but we never really saw it–we were foiled by a raging storm.  We got to Tongariro just in time to set up our newly acquired tarp (Ethan, you’ll be happy to know that we spent the two extra bucks to avoid the dreaded blue tarp).  We set up the tarp, pulled out the chairs, and pretty much sat there through the biggest storm of the summer.  We did manage to see a pretty neat waterfall, and watching the stream near our campsite turn into a raging river was cool too.  We spent a lot of time in the Visitor’s Center waiting out the weather which was not letting up at all.  We checked out the exhibits two or three times apiece.  We watched every minute of every video display inside that place.  If you ever want to know anything about the history of skiing in Tongariro just send us your questions.  Worried that we would soon become a part of the exhibit, we headed out into the rain and drove back to our refuge under the tarp.  The Tongariro Crossing hike would just have to wait until another time–the weather forecast wasn’t much better for the next few days.

We were in for a real treat though.  The drive from Tongariro towards Levin was full of landmarks including a giant carrot, a giant gum boot, and a memorial to a train wreck (normal size).  We spent a few days on the beaches near Levin and then headed to Celtic Organic Winery where we’ve been for the past 5 days.

You might be saying to yourself, “Why do Tim and Joanie seem to only go to farms that produce alcoholic beverages?”  Well, I don’t know what to say except, why not?  Clearly the benefits are outstanding.  Celtic Organic Winery has been fantastic.  Malcolm makes some very tasty wines in the old Celtic tradition. They age outside through the seasons instead of in a cool cellar.  We’ve had some delicious plum port wine, plum wine, celtic mead, green ginger wine, green ginger sparkling wine, whiskey mac, and feijoa wine.  I better go make sure I got them all.  Our first day here we were able to put our labeling skills to use, but since then we been focusing our energies on some outside projects.  We helped build a fence, weed some gardens, and for the past two days we’ve been cleaning up the 10 pine trees that were just cut down.  There’s now a massive pile of limbs out in the field, and it’s a bummer that we won’t be around to see the fire when it’s burned.

One of the best things about being here are the shared dinners that we have with Malcolm and his wife Deb.  We just had an incredible meal thanks to Malcom’s trip out in his boat today–fresh snapper.  We, I should say I, enjoyed some mussels yesterday.  Joanie was brave enough to give them a try, but isn’t the biggest fan.  We had fresh fish the first night here as well, and several other delicious meals in between.  We’ve got a bit of work to do tomorrow morning, and then we head south to Wellington to meet up with Ron and Jill from White Cliff Organic Brewery to help out with the Wellington beer festival.

Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park–a place we had been to a few years ago when Joanie was working as a Bald Eagle Observer for Arizona Game and Fish.  It was nice to see a somewhat familiar place and reminisce about the flat tire and flat spare that we got the last time we were here.  Luckily, we didn’t need to deal with that again, and we headed out to parts of the park that we hadn’t seen before.  Most of the campgrounds are neatly tucked behind and among the granite rock formations which provided hours of entertainment.  Scrambling, climbing, and jumping around the rocks is always good fun–especially when you’ve got the place to yourself.  The perfect weather continued, we explored the northwest corner of the park, and then started to realize that the first leg of our trip was almost coming to a close.  We’ve been having so much fun driving across the country, seeing new places and eating incredible food, that we almost forgot that we were going to be flying to New Zealand in a week!  And, best of all, we had another visit with friends to look forward to–along with the sun and surf of San Diego. Ahh, the ocean…at last.

We’ve been staying with our friends Ryan and Karin in San Diego for the past week, and it’s been really nice to be back near the coast with some good friends.  We spent our first full day out here learning how to windsurf in Mission Bay.  Ryan and Karin are incredibly patient and effective teachers and we were quickly standing up and sailing around the bay (with a few falls and dunks along the way!).

The rest of the week has consisted of plenty of good food and leisure sports such as croquet and rock golf, a Ryan Fritzsche original.   We really feel so lucky to have good friends across the country who welcome us into their house and put up with the small piles of stuff that we drag along with us!

There’s nothing like getting out on the trail…but, we had to put in our time below ground before we could enjoy some of the pleasures above.  From D.C. we made a beeline through the wind and rain for Mammoth Cave National Park.  By the time we got there at 12:30 am after 14 hours of driving the skies had cleared and the moon was shining.  We spent a few days at Mammoth, waiting for our Wild Cave tour on the third day.  This was a 6 hour tour in the cave, walking, crawling, climbing, and squeezing through some of the largest known cave system in the world.

After Mammoth, we had a great time visiting our Bear Brook friends Tom and Shire, who happen to live about 20 minutes from the Maker’s Mark distillery. This is a beautiful part of Kentucky with rolling hills, horse farms, and the sweet smell of aging bourbon wafting through the air.  We also visited Buffalo Trace distillery, and at both places we got personal tours and tastings.  At Buffalo Trace we just missed Elmer T. Lee (his namesake bourbon that he personally selects the barrels for is one of the finest), and our guide told us that he is “what you would call a real Southern gentleman”.  I bet.  It’s hard to think of a better place to be than in a 150 year old warehouse, surrounded by thousands of barrels of bourbon and the smell of the “angel’s share” (that’s what they call the evaporating bourbon that escapes from the barrels).