21 hours and counting

Boy am I not looking forward to this. According to my pree-cise calculations, since I can't sleep on a plane, we'll be up somewhere in the neighborhood of 29-30 hours before we can hit a bed. Arlington-Seattle-Vancouver-Auckland-Christchurch-hotel. I'm especially looking forward to the long hauls. Row: 65, seat pitch: 31 inches, seat recline: 6 inches. I can already feel the deep-vein thrombosis setting in.

I'm still not finished packing yet:

Cynthia's pile


My pile

I'm a little concerned about the whole driving thing when we get there. I'm fully expecting to have a severe case of zombieus stumblitis when we finally make it to CHC. I intentionally chose our first hotel based on the fact that it's only two left turns (and 8km) from the airport. I'm a little worried about having to drive on the wrong side of the road straight out of the gate. Between the two of us we should have a whole wit. Besides, Cynthia is fully certified:

Our friends in Queenstown have insisted that we use their SUV for our stay. Talk about deja vu. It's almost identical to the 4Runner that we sold earlier this year.

We just have to rent a car to get to QT, and then one to get back from QT to CHC. I have chosen the sturdy Toyota Corolla Hatch for this mission;


though I'm guessing that it won't be quite as useful as our trusty RAV4 from the last trip was :

All this talk about driving has reminded me of another worry I have. I mean, here we are, heading off and I'm going to have to spend 24/7 with my wife for the next two and a half months. It was effortless the last time, but this time, I just don't know. I'm starting to wonder just how well I know her.

You know how most women will wait until their husband is in the shower and then they'll sneak his cell phone and dismantle it down to the sub-routines trying to find incriminating evidence of personal nature? Well, I've accidentally done something similar. Accidentally.

I borrowed the wife's car the other day and I was scrolling through the radio station presets, when I found a country western station! I was dumbfounded! I thought I knew her!. Now I'm struggling with what I should do. Should I confront her about it? Should I pretend I never found out about this; pretend things are normal? I just don't know what to do. This could make for a LONG vacation.