Ready for take off

All went somewhat according to plan.  We made it to LA; visited Angie's family that took us out for a Lebanese dinner and horseback riding (not the LA we expected!); sold our car yesterday; and we head out tonight on a flight to Fiji.  

We likely won't have email in Fiji so we'll be in touch in NZ after we arrive (Jan 2nd).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Seaside Napping

On the way from SF to LA along the Pacific Coastal Highway 1, we shot this clip that depicts how we normally feel after our normal Christmas overeating, so it’s probably O.K. that we’ll miss the holidays this year. We take off from LA on the 24th, cross the international dateline, which scoots us ahead 23 hours and like magic, we land in Fiji on December 26th. Go figure.

The Long Arm Of The Law

Mpls. felt like a small town as we came across the bay bridge into San Francisco. With about 18 lanes of traffic and 15 different lane messages (and for the millionth time, I don’t exaggerate), Jim accidentally went through the prepaid lane so now there is surely a picture of our license plate floating through the California data banks. We’ll probably be lucky to get on the plane to NZ now.

Fast boarding and slow cooking.

What do ski reports, cooking from scratch and Driggs, Idaho have in common? Only the guru at the top of the mountain can answer that. Hanging in the Grand Tetons with Atlas and LaDuke was the perfect way to leave winter behind for a year and a half.

Driggs Idaho

So this country is a little bit bigger than it looks on the map.  No complaints though as much of the drive is spectacular.  This video clip is as we enter into the Grand Tetons National Park area.  We're boarding down the mountains with friends Dave Atlas and Karen LaDuke for a few days. 

It seems we brought snow with us almost everywhere we've been.  Denver got its first snowfall while we were there last weekend and it's snowing up at the Targhee ski hill getting ready for us in the morning.  Pics of broken limbs to post soon..

Launch

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will stop… well actually the combination of all three will stop us. We made it out of the cities as planned on Dec. 1st, but decided to grab a motel on the border of MN before heading into a major ice storm in Iowa.

Just as well as we we’re wiped out from a whirlwind departure. Here’s a picture of our lives packed up in to a corner of the basement. Believe it or not, we packed too much stuff into that little bug (glad we didn’t take a bigger car!) and have been throwing ballast off at each stop.