Seventy-five days ago while Melissa and I frantically packed for this trip, Meg sauntered into our room smiling a two-glasses-of-champagne smile and diffused the tension with a wonderfully appropriate and playful comment.  Seven days ago Meg reappeared in our lives arriving in Auckland from Hamilton to spend her spring break with us.

A few days later, standing on the perfect crescent hot sands beach in the Coromandel Pennisula, in one of those “wait, where am I again” moments, Meg blurted out, apropos of nothing, “whoa, you and mom have not been out of each other’s sight for like 12 hours every day for the last seventy days!”  To which I replied, “More like 24 hours a day.”  To which Meg replied, more to herself than to me, “That’s crazy! How does that work?” 

When Meg arrived, Melissa took the shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport to get her while I had an unwanted, but needed date with the local dentist.  Two days earlier in Glenorchy, a filling fell out.  There are no dentists in Glenorchy, at least none that I wanted fooling around with my teeth.  However, by 11:00 am the Monday Meg arrived, I had a reconstructed tooth, Meg had grabbed a thirty minute power nap, and the three of us began our two weeks together.  

Side note: once again, I am stunned by how far behind the United States has fallen to other countries. I have commented on how the airports and Internet service in Southeast Asia makes me weep when I think of what we accept in the United States.  My experience at the dentist office in Auckland provoked a similar reaction.

The dentist, a late thirties, early forties man, using his lap top, took a three-dimensional image of my damaged tooth with high resolutions cameras and used that image to construct, on his lap top in real time, a perfect 3D filling, which he then “printed” using the 3D printer in his office.  Total time: one hour and fifteen minutes.  Total cost: $360.00.   

My new tooth and I reconnected with Meg and Melissa later that morning before driving to the Coromandel Peninsula.  Melissa has written about our delightful first days there and our upscale accommodations – nothing’s too good for “my little girl.”  Right.  After three weeks in a camper van, Melissa was ready for a little comfort.

From the Coromandel Peninsula, we drove to Tongariro National Park and checked into the Kiwi version of a roadside Motel Six.  I reasserted some budgeting authority over this enterprise.  Before you form any impression, let me say that I love these places, not in the same way I love a four-star guesthouse like the one in Coromandel, but in the way I love it when my whole family plays nicely with each other. These roadside motels – the only thing available in National Park – allow everyone to enjoy the natural beauty, and everyone, at least everyone on our trip, was decent and considerate of the paper-thin walls between rooms, the shared hot tub, and quiet hours.  

On our first full day in National Park, we hauled our tired behinds out of bed at six, grabbed some eggs, toast and coffee, boarded a shuttle bus and set off on the famed Alpine Crossing as the sun began to rise.  The hike is 19.4 kilometers up to a crossing through a volcanic crater and down the other side.  Total elevation gain is roughly 2500 feet.  For you Tolkien freaks, like me, this is the hike through Mordor.

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The climb starts gradually for the first hour and then drives up the mountain at a steep pitch before reaching the first “red” crater.  At the top, the hike flattens as we walked through moonscapes of volcanic rock. The clouds shifted and mixed around us like the steam issuing from the thermal vents.  From the second crater we descended through scree, digging our heels in to keep our footing.  Two neon green lakes magically appeared out of the fog.  From there, we walked downhill for a couple hours to the end of the trail, finishing in a wetland forest.  Josh, my Lord of the Rings companion, you were missed.  

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Back at the Motel Six, Meg and I, having tea and a PBJ, sat across from the side-by-side hot tubs.  A half dozen older Kiwi men, fresh off their mountain bikes, downed Coronas.  Four of them were planted in the hot tub looking as if they planned to stay a while. I struck up a conversation with them that lasted, on and off, the rest of the evening and into the next day. 

We really bonded later that evening at the pub watching a Rugby match.  They tried to explain the rules as we peppered them with questions.  A typical scene: something happens on the giant screen TV that elicits a simultaneous “Ooooh” from the Kiwis.  The three of us, realizing we just missed something important, start asking questions at the same time.  Two of the Kiwis try to explain, interrupting each other, until we all realize the futility of it, drink another beer and keep watching.  About thirty minutes later, Meg, the only one of us who seemed to grasp most of the rules, declared, “This makes me want to play rugby.”  Her thumb is not yet healed.  I’m hoping she sticks with Ultimate. 

On day two in National Park, we drove about an hour north to Taupo Lake, the largest lake in New Zealand. Taupo, along with Rotorua (about an hour north) is a tourist playground with the lake, mountain biking, hot springs, and about a hundred extreme, thrill seeker things to do from bungee jumping to luging on a wheeled sled down the side of a mountain.  We opted for a long hike that began at some hot springs, passed Huka Falls and ended at some amazing rapids that only come to life three times a day when the dam is opened.  We arrived at the dam in time to watch one of the releases.  In about five minutes, the gentle ripple of the stream below us was transformed into an impassable gauntlet of magnificent and deadly rapids. 

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We returned from our hike the same way we started arriving at the hot springs about five hours after setting out.  We did not bring bathing suits, but, hey, what are quick-dry shorts made for anyway. Like a bunch of lemmings, we plopped ourselves in the shallow water where the thermal heated spring mixes with the cool flowing waters of the river.  We would probably still be there now except that we got hungry.  We ducked into an Italian restaurant, our quick-dry pants not quite quick enough to keep from soaking the restaurant seats. Whatever.  New Zealand is a casual place. 

The next day, we checked out of the hotel at National Park and began the four-hour drive back to Auckland. After ten minutes on the road, Meg happened to ask what day it was.  Melissa, the only one capable of remembering these things, said March 24.  A few seconds later, for reasons I cannot explain, I suddenly realized that I had booked our hotel in Auckland for March 25, not March 24.  I was off by one day.  This, unfortunately, is something else I tend to do, not unlike confusing the time of departure for the start of our trip.

As Meg said, “there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.”  We rerouted ourselves to Rotarua, checked in early to a motel, and found ourselves about an hour later standing on a 150-foot precipice with cords tied around our ankles.  Yes, we went bungee jumping.

When you are seated on a platform cantilevered over cliffs with nothing but emerald green waters 150 feet below you, the Kiwi bungee master asks if you would like to try and touch the water.  At that moment, I was concentrating more on keeping my sphincter muscle closed.  Meg, however, informed the bungee master that we (meaning Meg and me, we were jumping tandem) would like to touch the water.

Ankles secured, we waddled, arms wrapped around each other, to the edge, gave a smile to the camera, and on the count of three “leaned forward.”  Seriously, those were the instructions.  There is nothing but empty air for 150 feet, and on the count of three we were supposed to “lean forward.”  Halfway down, Meg yelled at me, through uncontrollable laughter, “touch the water, touch the water.” We missed by a foot, not that I noticed.  I had my chin tucked, another instruction, so rigidly into my chest that I did not see the water before we were rebounding upwards and dropping again.  I did not wet myself.  Meg could not stop hooting.  

You would think a fifty-eight year old would have enough sense not to do something like that.  You would also think a fifty-eight year old who had done it once would check the box, give thanks that his body still functioned and that he had not soiled himself and move on.  You would be wrong.  Melissa wanted a go at it.  Read that sentence again slowly.

The second go round, sitting on the bench getting our feet secured, I informed the bungee master that, yes, indeed, I wanted to try and touch the water again.  In the face of that Kiwi accent there really was no other answer.  On three, we leaned forward, Melissa squeezed her eyes shut, and I stretched as hard as I could (chin-tucking be damned) for the water missing it by a quarter inch. On the rebound, Melissa, delirious that she had survived, grabbed me – against the instructions – sending us into a spiral as we bounced yo-yo style upside down over the river.

But wait, there is more. Did I mention that anyone who jumps gets a second jump on the same day for less than half the cost?  I had used up my second jump discount, but Meg had not. Mom and I raced on wobbly knees to the viewing platform while Meg, a dot on the launching platform, prepared for her solo attempt at touching the water.  Unknown to either Melissa or me, the same Kiwi bungee master who had missed on his calculations in our first two attempts, said to Meg, and I believe this is an exact quote, “do you want to just go for it?”  What do you think Meg said?

At the bottom of her second leap, looking like a bobber on a fishing line, Meg completely disappeared in the lake before popping champagne cork style out of the water.  She did not simply touch the water; she fully embraced it. Later, Meg told me the bungee master told her to duck her head before impact or she would – again direct quote – “blacken her eyes.”  Box checked. I can’t figure out how to upload videos to this blog, but please visit my Facebook page to see the videos of these epic jumps.

The only way this trip could be any better than it has been is to have people we love with us. Here’s my shout out to Roaring Meg, and of course to my newly discovered dare-devil wife.  After thirty years, some couples might choose to renew their vows with some friends, some wine, some good food.  We apparently prefer jumping off a tower together.  I’m down with that. 

I love the way the fog-bank clouds creep over the tops of the eastern mountains, but never descend as low as the river valley, like bear cubs sniffing out from a safe distance the pocket of people camping down here.  It’s dawn in Glenorchy, a little hamlet anchored at the end of lake Wakatipu and hugged on three sides by mountains.  The sun is not yet above the eastern ridge although the spiked peaks of the western ridge are lit up like matches.

Melissa and I camped here with Gertie our first night not 20 feet from where I type.  We loved this place so much, we wanted to end the trip here as well.  In one of those odd “male things,” backtracking feels wrong, but as we drove down the eastern shore of Lake Wakatipu yesterday stopping for a “short hike” that turned into an 11-mile trek, I was cured of any resentment or misgivings.  I could drive that stretch of narrow twisted road looking at that lake shimmering a shade of blue found no where else on earth, snatching glimpses of the mountain peaks, some glacier covered, a hundred times and never tire of it. Glenorchy might be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and it is certainly the most majestic. 

As evidence that I have reached a place of wonder unencumbered by thoughts or desires, I left my phone (and camera) in the camper van yesterday no longer needing or wanting to capture the experience digitally.  We had been here once already, camera out, seeking those perfect shots to share with all of you.  Perhaps selfishly I wanted the place to myself this time although I spent most of the hike thinking about how happy I would be to show all of you this place, like a kid at Christmas showing you the toys I got.

I have reached a point in my faith journey where I honestly (and at least sitting here right now) without fear admit that I have no idea what happens to us when we die – heaven, reincarnation, dust unto dust, recycled atoms?  I did not participate in any way in the cosmic or sacred event that landed me in my mother’s womb fifty-eight years ago.  I did nothing to earn the right to come into existence, temporary or not. Everything I have experienced, everyone I have loved, everything I have tasted, touched, seen, and heard has been a gift.  If this life, however brief or long or well lived or wasted, was given to me no strings attached, does it really matter what happens when it is over?  What audacity to look such a gift in the face and demand that it last forever. 

To love, to be grateful, to sit in a camper van in the cold morning air and watch the clouds lift off the tops of the mountains not knowing — truly not knowing — if I will ever return here is, it seems to me, the only way to thank and praise whatever creative force or happenstance put me in this spot to begin with. 

My entire living space right now is about six feet by six feet, the size of the rear of the camper van made up like a miniature queen bed.  Melissa is next to me, earphones plugged into one of her Netflix adventures. I give her grief for watching them, but if I could get Game of Thrones, I’d be bingeing with the best of them.

We’re inside at 4:00 pm because, for the first time, it is raining.  It’s been raining all day.  We drove from our campsite outside of Invercargill to Mossburn, a speck of a town about an hour from Queenstown.  We’re pretty much done with the need to get somewhere or to see something.  We could have stayed an extra day or two at the beach, but with the rain, I’m glad we moved on.  Our final stop will be where we began, a high-end camper van site in Glenorchy with coffee (yes!) and a parlor that feels like the lobby of a nice mountain lodge.  We plan to treat ourselves by hunkering down there for our final three nights with Gertie. 

We are, for the first time in weeks, at a site that, although quite nice, does not have any spectacular natural feature begging us to get out and explore.  We’re in a large flat pasture with some interesting animals sporting stylish hair cuts.  The view of the mountains around us would be spectacular but for the low hanging, Seattle-in-November clouds that have settled down on us like a thick blanket. The pitter-patter of raindrops on the camper van coupled with the cool temperatures makes me ache for a nap, which I am not energetically resisting.  

Maybe it is part of human nature to want to sum up sections of our lives, to put a name to a period of time as if the name could contain everything about that era.  It’s not unlike the way CNN has done a series of documentaries about the last five decades.  Why do we think in decades?  Did the free-love radical sixties really end on January 1, 1970, immediately trading in bell-bottoms and peace signs for leisure suits and disco? I find myself trying to put this sabbatical into neat categories as well – Southeast Asia, Yoga Camp, Milford Trek, and now the camper van era giving way to something else.  

I have, as I’ve said in a previous post, found myself very much in the moment on this trip, but right now, I find myself very much in the moment and still.  Rain and clouds do that to me.  The stillness gives me the space to realize all those subtle things I have experienced on this trip, the things that took a back seat to the overwhelming natural beauty of this place.  For sixty consecutive days, Melissa has not been more than a few hundred feet away from me.  To put it another way, for sixty consecutive days, Melissa and I have been within hand-holding distance every minute of every day with only a few short exceptions. I haven’t felt cramped.  I haven’t felt the need to get some space.  You’ll have to ask her if she feels the same way. I think these last sixty days have been as close to a literal interpretation of the biblical saying “one flesh” as I’ve ever experienced.  How can this be?

In her post, Mountains to Sea with Gertie, Melissa noted how being surrounded by natural beauty makes it easy to be happy.  It lifts us beyond our everyday selves to someplace higher, or more real and vivid, or maybe less confused.  As my friend Jim Rock commented, something about traveling, being a titch uncomfortable is mentally and emotionally freeing.  I could not agree more.  In Seattle, if my toilet backs up, I’m in a tizzie even though I have five other toilets that work.  In the middle of nowhere in New Zealand my only self contained toilet leaks and I fix it, and Melissa, knowing that I will fix it, enjoys a second cup of coffee, and I enjoy laughing about the fact that I am fixing a toilet while she enjoys a cup of coffee.

I am a better person on this trip than I have ever been in my life.  I feel like the person I always wanted to be.  I strike up nothing conversations with the first person I meet at the camper van site and end up feeling like I’ve known the person all my life. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. Melissa and I struck up just this kind of conversation with the seventy-year old Kiwi couple in the site next to us last night.  A little later, after dinner, the woman, Maureen, knocked on our camper van door to tell me she was worried about the mole on my cheek.  She wanted to make sure I had had it checked.  I’ve had it since birth.  Reassured, she turned in for the evening.

We’ve written paragraphs about the natural beauty of New Zealand for obvious reasons, but we have not written as much about these subtle, wonderful, kind interactions with perfect strangers.   They happen every night, in every camp.  It’s as if all the wonder and beauty I absorb during the day radiates out of me at night.  I’d like to find a way to bring this back with me.  Like Jim said, however, maybe it is more than being in a beautiful place.  Maybe it is also part of getting away.  It makes me wonder though, what am I getting away from, and why would I go back?  

If there is a downside to feeling this happy and alive, it is the few times I check in with the news and my heart breaks. The insanity is so real from this perspective, so crushingly painful.  It is like watching a speeding train with all my friends and family aboard roar ever faster towards a washed out bridge, and everyone on board that train, no matter how well intentioned, just keeps shoveling coal into the engine.

Being happy is being in love with Melissa, and with the world around me.  Being happy is knowing that I am worthy of love because I have found a part of myself that I love.  Being happy is being grateful for this specific moment in a camper van with the rain coming down without consideration or weight given to all that came before or all that might come after.    

Oyster Cove Restaurant, Bluff, NZ

Don, for our reader’s sake and for our sake, we have agreed to interview each other in this post, keeping our answers to a thoughtful minimum.  Here’s my first question for you: We’ve just left the Catlins after another spree of sunny days and cool nights. What three images will you take away with you?

Miles of crescent beaches, windswept and empty. Rolling green pastures that sweep up to the sky in one direction and fall into the ocean in the other direction. Gnarled, dense rain forests that grow down the hills to the edge of the beach.

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Lis, you are the visual one, taking in everything around you.  Whether we were walking on the beach or driving in Gertie among the fields, my question has always been, what are you thinking?  What do you take away with you from this place?

Melissa: Images are where I start, and I asked you because I love the way you describe things. The only one I would add are all the mossy waterfalls tumbling water in hidden rock canyons. The one we walked to yesterday – where someone had made a path by laying down sections of fern tree trunks – was especially sweet. 

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It’s harder to say what I take away from the Catlins. It’d be something about where I feel the most happy between civilization and nature. Right now, I look forward to a warm bath, but I don’t want to give up our morning walks on deserted beaches.  

What most surprised you about the Catlins, Don?

Don:  Two things that go in the category of sheer, dumb luck: the beautiful weather and how alone we were virtually all the time.  We had no rain the entire trip.  The only people we interacted with were the ones camping with us. I’ve never been anywhere in the world with so much unspoiled, empty, natural spaces.  Do you realize we have driven over 1,000 kilometers without seeing a single billboard? We walked on dozens of beaches and half a dozen lakes and did not see a single mansion or private property sign.  I love the Kiwis for sharing this rich beauty with everyone. One last thing: some of the places we walked to were over privately owned pastures, but they were still open to the public.  

So, Lis, you said you are looking forward to a warm shower.  I’m with you on that one, although we’ve had warm showers, just not in particularly luxurious bathrooms.  Is there anything (two things?) you liked about the camper van?

Melissa: First of all, Don, I said warm “bath.” But I could respond to your “plenty of hot showers” comment. For one thing, last night, my shower had a 5-minute timer. Not only did the one less minute throw me off, I had also had no place to put my soap or shampoo or razor inside the stall. To re-up the shower, I had to lean out of it, insert another NZ dollar and explain to the women standing there waiting that I would be out “in a minute.” Not exactly relaxing, since the next two minutes found me balancing on one flip-flop while I pulled on one leg of my pants, and then the other.

Gertie, though, now there’s a lovefest. I love our morning ritual. You, usually, get up and plug in the hot water and get our French press ready. If we have Internet, it’s fun to make toast on the floor while I prop my legs’ on the drivers’ seat and read the headlines. You also have kindly given me that seat, which also has the only ledge to set a coffee cup on. To clarify for our readers, after the second night, we have not unmade our bed in order to get out the actual table in the campervan. 

What about you? What do you like about Gertie?

Don: Our first 24 hours in the  camper van was like the time we took a ballroom dancing lesson together.  We lasted about five minutes before the instructor gently separated us and suggested we might make better progress if we practiced with a more experienced dancer.  Having said that, after the first few days, I love that we have learned the camper van shuffle.  We have a great routine in a tiny space.  I always knew we were compatible, but I didn’t know we could be so compatible in such a small space.  In fact, one huge take away for me after the last several days is how much I like being alone with you. Today, for example, we did the breakfast fox trot, cleaned the dishes and took a fantastically beautiful six-mile walk on the beach before 11:15 am.  Could we do this for the rest of our lives, like you suggested? 

Melissa: Absolutely. We can make time for each other so long as we know that time together is just that. It doesn’t have to be “special” or even cost anything. I will breakfast and walk with you anywhere, urban or pastoral. Simpler is better. Right now, I’m looking forward to whatever sauté scramble we’re going to cook up for dinner. It will pair well with the cheap wine we have left in the fridge.   

Okay, to wrap this thing up, here’s a simple association game for you. Just write down whatever comes first to mind.

Sheep – Dingleberries

Penguins – Josh

Seals – Playful

New Zealand Fish – Best Dinner We Had

Oysters at Bluff, New Zealand – Nine bucks an oyster and a split beer.  Give me a brew pub anytime.

Guy in Bathrobe at Last Trailer Site – Gutsy call.

I don’t even want to know what comments this word association might solicit or, worse, what it means.  Let’s blow this tourist trap oyster bar at the edge of the world and seek comfort in Lady G and the Amble on Inn trailer park!

I am at a point on this trip beyond the point of forgetting what day of the week it is.  I have “detached” from my normal daily routines to the point that trying to recall my former, pre-sabbatical, daily routine feels like trying to remember what I had to eat for dinner last week.  Number one, I can’t remember; number two, it doesn’t matter.  Philosophically, I think I am at that point where I understand in a concrete way the rather abstract notion that to not make a choice is to make a choice.  If you are still following me, not having a daily routine has become my new daily routine. 

Yesterday, we walked several miles along the beach on football field expanses of hard-packed, brown sand, climbed stairs to rocky overlooks and padded through dense brush, all before noon.  The beach was 150 yards from our camper van site, a little hole in the wall “kiwi” park we liked so much we stayed an extra night.  On the 8 or so mile walk, we saw maybe six people and about the same number of seals.  We also saw the famous Moeraki boulders, giant rocks eroded in perfect spheres tossed on the beach like marbles left behind by giants.  They don’t exist anywhere else in the world.

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Later that evening, we walked out to a lighthouse hoping to see the rare penguins return to their private beach after a day of fishing.  We were too early and had to leave to make our dinner reservation – the only one we have made on this trip – at Fleur’s Place.  See Melissa’s last post for more about Fleur. 

The next morning, Gertie, our camper van, safely transported us to Dunedin, a town of about 150,000 people where Melissa reconnected with a high school friend, Sandra, who kindly fixed us lunch.  Afterwards, we strolled through the botanical gardens, stopping at a café on the way back to Sandra’s house.  That night, parked in a less glamorous camper van site – the urban sites are worth avoiding if possible – I realized something odd.  Sandra’s house was the first house I had set foot in, in two months.

We’ve christened our camper van Gertie or Lady Gertrude because she may look like a Winnebago, but she’s made by Mercedes.  After almost two weeks, I have discovered most of her secrets, and, as such, have grown quite fond of this house on wheels.  I am not sure Melissa, who has not driven Gertie, fully appreciates the girth of our genteel lady.  Yesterday, on the way to Sandra’s, Melissa shouted, “No, you missed the turn; pull a Ueey.” Lady G does not pull Ueeys.  She also finds it challenging to pull into parking spaces at grocery stores, another fact that often escapes Melissa’s attention.  Even if I manage to get the big lady between the lines, the odds of her getting out without clipping something are not good.

In pondering the differences between this life and my life in Seattle, I have had a few simple, but profound epiphanies. 

Epiphany number one: I could not do this trip with any other person on the planet except Melissa.  We know each other that well.  It’s not all sunshine and roses, but most of the time it is, and the times when she is hangry or I am annoyed are shared, like a shared psychosis, only in a good way.  There is Melissa.  There is me, and there is us.  I like all three. 

Epiphany number two:  There are things in our environment that steal some of our happiness without us even noticing it.  Two nights ago we camped at Lake Tekapo, a certified dark sky reserve.  I got up at 1:00 am to go to the bathroom.  Yes, I could have gone in the camper van, but I am still recovering from the urine on the floor of the shower situation. Besides, it was a nice night.  The moment I opened the door of the van, I stood completely still craning my neck to look up.  The Milky Way galaxy extended like a vapor ribbon in an arc from horizon to dark horizon.  In the middle of this gauze of stars, the Southern Cross burned brilliantly.  Pinpricks of light sparkled in a half-dome of glittering glory.  Light pollution is not toxic, and I understand the necessity of streetlights in a city, but I pay a price.  

Today we drove from Dunedin on the beginning of what is called the Southern Scenic Route.  The coastline undulates between flat sandy beach to magnificently carved cliffs and caves.  We stopped to walk to tunnel beach, an area that looks like the California coast about 60 million years ago.  Rolling hills with sheep grazing suddenly slice off into precipices hundreds of feet high.  Pacific ocean rollers crash on the cliffs sending spumes rocketing skyward.  A huge jetty protrudes into the ocean.  Its top still rounded and green.  It’s smooth brown sides shaved and carved by the tides. So much of New Zealand feels like watching the earth in its adolescence.  Its adult features only just emerging from beneath its juvenile innocence.  

I thought that being on this sabbatical would help me learn to be still, to quiet my mind and be in the moment.  I thought I would achieve this by being more diligent and consistent in meditating each day. I have not meditated once on this journey, at least not the way I did in Seattle, sitting quietly with my eyes closed. Yet I have rarely felt more in the moment, more still, more connected to an essential goodness in all things.  I am sure being with the woman I love in a place that defines beauty has much to do with my state of mind.  We are both free of the anxieties of work.  But Seattle is a beautiful place and Melissa and I are together there as well as here, and while work adds anxiety, it also provides a sense of purpose and meaning.  Yet, somehow, this environment makes it so much easier to see goodness in all things. 

This afternoon we stopped in Brighton, a small coastal town with a huge beach, about twelve streets, a convenience store, a gas station and a café.  One of the owners seeing the two of us typing away on our computers couldn’t help but have a little fun with us.  Him: you know the Internet is ten dollars per hour.  Melissa and me simultaneously: seriously.  Him: nah.  Something about being in a place of happiness draws other people to you.  Later that same day, in another small town, we ducked into a grocery store to get food for dinner.  Melissa started a conversation with an older gentleman who not only selected the Cabernet for our dinner, but spoke so lovingly about a particular apple only grown in the south island that we bought several.  Before leaving, he opened a bag of candies he was purchasing so Melissa could try one. 

Epiphany number three: we have within us, every single one of us, the power to reflect the irresistible beauty of creation.  For me, the challenge is whether I have the courage to believe that even when this incredible sabbatical ends.

March 8, 2019

Moeraki, New Zealand: Day 13 with Gertie (Lady G), our wide-hipped Maui campervan.

When we feel happy from one day to the next, it’s a good idea to ask why, where is this ease coming from? Apart from the obvious – I love my partner-in-life, we’re on a glorious vacation together – I want to dig deeper. As of today, we’ve been out of our home, out of Seattle, for eight weeks. It’s taken time for coherent feelings to bubble up, but here goes. I resist change. I don’t think I have changed much over my life; I certainly feel tense in times of transition. But I am changing, most of all maybe, in understanding the difference between being motivated by what I want (in Christian parlance, “my heart’s desire,” as in “God’s desire for me”), and by something else, call it compulsion or fear. To be able to trust your heart’s desire has got to be one of the key accomplishments in life. It can be hard to figure out, but the heart does not lead you astray. What it does is get buried or muted in its role as the quiet younger sibling to the know-it-all Ego and rationalizing Mind. This unique period of time has allowed me to lie fallow for the first time in a long while. Right now, my heart’s desire is simple – slow down, move around, be curious, laugh and play with Don. How will that translate moving forward?

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All the things I learn and aspire to model from my friends and mentors – my parents and my children – sit with me in the here and now. If all of you knew just how many times I think of you and feel graced! Mike and Cindy, I am forever grateful that you forged this path and got us on it to New Zealand. As Don and I do the dance in our tiny campervan kitchen, I think of all the times Cindy pulled off a gourmet spread on the boat, while Mike did the work to get us on and off it. Truth be told, it never appealed to me – until now – to do what you did for so many summers with your children: live on a sailboat for a month. Now I get it. It is absolutely fulfilling to tread simply and live simply, away from the million and one things that take us on a rollercoaster of emotion every day. Debbie Jo and Jim, we wouldn’t be here had you not turned us on to multi-day trekking at Mont Blanc and the Dolomites. You gave us a pace and an outlook that we treasure and wouldn’t otherwise have.

So, in this cleaning of my personal slate, a couple of things have become clear. When you quit doing what you’re doing for 55-60 hours a week, together with the habits and routines that keep you functioning at that high level, you wonder what will replace it. I don’t know the answer to that; I know I do endless summer really well. But I am pleasantly surprised to learn that I don’t get bored – as in, restless in the moment, aware of some lack, not comfortable in my own skin. I relish our anonymity as we chug from one place to the next. I enjoy the conversations that develop with strangers as we are washing dishes or sitting in our chairs next to the van. We’ve also hit the jackpot with the weather. The vaunted New Zealand rain and wind have not shown their face; it’s just dumb luck, but Don and I have lived one pleasant day after another the entire time we’ve been in New Zealand, with the exception of the glorious rain and flooded streams we had on the second day of the Milford Trek. It’s pretty easy to feel good when you’re drinking each day at the fountain of Nature, taking time to listen to the wind in the trees, lie on the grass, and walk and talk, as we have done. The days we spend more time driving in the hot sun, wondering where we will forage for dinner food, and cleaning up the campervan are not as fun.

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A second factor we’ve benefitted from is the variety of scenery. We’ve moved among complex ecosystems like we’re shuffling a deck of cards. The day before yesterday, we rose in the morning in front of Lake Tekapo (the accent on the first syllable), drove an hour to the highest mountain in New Zealand, Mt. Cook (12,321 feet), and hiked the steep climb to the Red Tarns and bushwhacking above it, to a saddle that opened our view to the entire Southern Alps range. After descending to the beautiful visitors’ centre and reading about the hardy Victorian men (and women – Freda La Faur was the first, in her blouse and long skirt hiding what must have been huge quadriceps) who climbed these peaks, followed by Sir Edmund Hillary, who prepped here for his 1953 Everest climb, we drove 10 minutes to walk up to a viewpoint over an immense glacial lake and series of glaciers.

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That next day, we (I, anyway) reluctantly left the land of turquoise lakes and miles-long riverbed valleys, to drive east to the Pacific, where we are, once again, happily ensconced on the beach, at a funky little campground two miles away from the Moeraki Boulders, one hour north of the city of Dunedin. We knew we’d found the right place when the campers we interacted with the first evening were all Kiwis.

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It is so quiet and peaceful here. Don and I spent the morning walking down the beach, past the unique boulders, into the tiny town and harbor, even stumbling onto the delightful property where we will eat freshly caught seafood tonight, a well-known restaurant called “Fleur’s Place.” I love our campervan dinners – thanks to Don, griller supreme – but I can’t wait to go out! Post-dinner Note: Fleur is the Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) of New Zealand; now in her late 70s (my guess), she enjoys her fame yet has not lost her down-to-earth kindness. We spoke to her at our table. It was, by far, our best meal in NZ, recommended by Paul and Debbie Brainerd. Fresh, filleted fish: Blue Cod and Monk, with steamed vegetables and our chosen sauce (tartar and lemon, capers and lime), paired with a bottle of local Sauvignon Blanc, and topped off with apricot tart with vanilla ice cream and two French-sized bowls of decaf cappuccino. Parfait!

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Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers/Little we see in Nature that is ours. “Ode to Immortality“

I am not a cynical person, but the transactional nature of many of my relationships at home can get me off balance. Does that person like me because I am giving him/her some thing? Am I guilty of the same? Joy and true laughter come outside of the transaction and transcend the quid pro quo of our daily lives, the entertainment we pay for, the relief we feel at the end of a long day.

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Nature, both in its wonder and its sensual pleasures, is the beauty I seek and embrace. Wordsworth found the soul of beauty in his backyard, the lake district of England. I am painfully aware that my paean to nature is contradicted and complicated by the carbon footprint we left flying halfway around the world to get here. Our access is privileged and unequal. Yet I can record what we’ve found and hopefully, refer back to it as a reminder that nature and its rhythms can draw us out of ourselves and into better relationship with others. Peace and quiet go hand-in-hand with joy. Today, I watched a bunch of seals lazing, stretching on the rocks, and cavorting in the shallows. I have always heard that seals are playful, but I laughed out loud watching two juveniles roll over again and again in the water, wrapping themselves in kelp, lying on their backs, folding their front flippers, and turning upside down to wriggle their flippers like water ballet dancers.

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We’ve also been treated to a family with five small children here at the Moeraki campground (including 18-month-old twins). Last night, I watched the older sister pull her beaming pudgy brother around and around in a little wagon, and thought, how can she keep doing that? I must have asked her, because she said, “this is fun.” Her parents hadn’t asked her to do it; she was enjoying the moment as much as he was. Peace and security are sometimes needed to put us in the place where we can be creative, spontaneous, and loving.

I am in my element when I can lie on soft grass and stare up at the clouds or a tree overhead. I love to feel the grass beneath my feet, and yesterday, even Don blissed out walking barefoot along the shore. The freedom to “do nothing,” where nothing puts you in the present moment (with the Transcendentalists) – that is joy. To have a thought pop into your head – not put there by media, not a knee-jerk, habitual reaction to something or somebody that provokes you – that is joy. To have the time to follow that thought, that is heaven.

Yesterday morning at four am, Melissa crawled back into bed next to me in our snug little camper van, patted my leg, and said, without a whisper of panic, “There is urine all over the floor of the shower.  Don’t worry, we’ll fix it later.”  She rolled over and nodded off as if she had said something like, “It’s still early, Honey; don’t get up yet. I’ll fix eggs later.”  The rest of the night I dreamed I had to go to the bathroom.

Camper Vans are like technology.  They are great until they are not.  Ours is a Mercedes, “certified self-contained,” 2.8 meters high and 7.2 meters long, twenty-first century version of the old VW van that, according to the very hip, borderline irreverent young man who gave us the key, feels, after a few days, “just like being in a Holiday Inn.”  I know he meant that to be an optimistic assessment, but I haven’t stayed in a Holiday Inn since they removed those “magic fingers” vibrating beds.    

We’ve lived out of our Camper Van for just over a week now.  While we did get a full briefing from the aforementioned young man on the operation of its many moving parts – including the proper use and cleaning of the highly touted self-contained toilet – I confess I became somewhat dazed and confused in the first two minutes of the briefing when I realized I would be driving this behemoth on narrow, winding mountain roads.  Even that realization didn’t pitch me over the edge, though.  It was the moment I climbed into what I instinctively understood to be the driver’s seat to get a feel for things and realized the steering wheel had been moved to the right side of the van.  The young Kiwi made no verbal comment.  He smiled and tapped his finger on a huge sticker on the bottom left of the windshield that read, “KEEP LEFT!”

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I’ll have you know, however, that I have successfully navigated our ship from Queenstown, through Glenorchy, back through Queenstown to Lake Wanaka, over the glorious Haast Pass, up the west coast highway passing the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, all the way north to a beautiful little beach area in a town called Hokitika, and across spectacular Arthur’s Pass into Christchurch – all without any serious incident.  The multiple yelps from Melissa when the rear wheels on the left side drifted a bit close to the guardrail don’t count.  It’s better than drifting right into oncoming traffic.  And, the time I drove over the freshly painted white lines, again on the far left, earning an exasperated arms-in-the-air expletive from the road worker, was really a minor incident at best.       

On the day Melissa gave me the news about our no longer fully self-contained toilet, we were parked at Fox Glacier, a small, rustic town halfway up the western coast nestled into the mountains beneath Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman.  I spent the better part of that glorious, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky morning learning more about the operations of a self-contained toilet than I ever wanted or hoped to know.  All the while, helicopters shuttled tourists up over the “Western Alps” for spectacular views.  As one delightful Kiwi couple told us later, “we have had the most magnificent summer.” Cloudless days are apparently rare.  As for me, I had a great view from the dump station at the camper park as I fiddled with valves that are the last line of defense between a camper van that feels like a Holiday Inn and one that feels like a PortaPotty.

Necessity is truly the mother of invention.  I fixed the problem.  Later that day on a beautiful hike around Lake Mathieson, Melissa said, “I wasn’t worried.  I knew you would fix it.” I felt flattered and somewhat manipulated at the same time.

Camper vanning is a world unto itself, with its own rhythms and sense of time.  Each day begins and ends at a camper van park, backing the beast into the designated space between other similar beasts, plugging in, turning on the grill, and cooking dinner with an entirely new set of camper mates. Everyone shares. Everyone (almost) is good-natured, and every camper park is different.

At Lake Wanaka, we looked up at brown-covered mountains over which rolled in the most amazing weather. Below us was the shimmering lake. At the glaciers, we stared at the glowing white peaks of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook.  At Hokitika, we walked on an endless beach virtually devoid of any human-made things, stuck our feet, for the first time, in the Tasman Sea, and watched a mesmerizing sunset.  At night, we saw thousands of stars glittering among the Milky Way galaxy, including the magnificent Southern Cross, this hemisphere’s version of our Big Dipper.

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We have a general idea of the route we plan to take, but no idea of how long we will stay in any one place. The camper van is due back in Queenstown on March 17.  Until then, the world is literally our oyster.  Today, we left the beach at Hokatika and drove over a truly spectacular pass, the kind of drive where you involuntarily exclaim “wow” every time you come around a bend. The way up was green with waterfalls and glacial streams. The way down was something I have never seen before – huge vistas of brown grass-covered mountains, above which towered the arid, moon-like peaks of the Western Alps.

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We stopped twice, at the top of the pass to walk to a waterfall, and in the river valley on the far side of the pass, thinking we would stretch our legs.  To our surprise, we ended up spelunking.  Seriously.  In addition to many hiking trails, this particular stop hosted a limestone cave carved by the clear, cold waters flowing into the valley from the Alps. The cave stretches about 700 meters from one opening to the next.  The signs cautioned intrepid hikers to hike upstream, to wear sturdy shoes, and to take one headlamp per person.  It also warned that we would be wading through cold water, sometimes waist deep.

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A good thing about camper vans is that they contain everything you own, at least everything you own on your vacation. We quickly changed into caving clothes, whatever that is, grabbed our headlamps and plunged in. Ten steps in, Melissa discovered that the battery in her headlamp was dead.  We soldiered on.  For the first plodding, step by step, handhold by handhold twenty minutes, the fantastic and eerie smooth limestone walls, cold rushing water, and mysterious rumbling noises reverberating underground distracted us from any concern. After thirty minutes, we both fell silent concentrating on our footing, not daring to say the one thing we both were thinking: “Did we take a wrong turn?”  The water rushed louder, a good sign, since the final exit from the cave involved climbing up and over a small waterfall.  It became an exercise in faith, hanging on to the belief that around the next bend we would see daylight. I give a huge shout out to Melissa. This was way the hell out of her comfort zone. 

Later that day, we parked in Christchurch, an urban camper van site that reminds me of being on Buford highway in Atlanta, not the most glamorous place on the planet.  If we are honest, we are both looking forward to the comfort and luxury of a hotel room soon.  But whenever we allow ourselves to wander down that path, we consider the fact that our day started on the Tasman Sea, crossed over the Alps, plunged into a cave and skidded to a stop in Christchurch.

We’ll make coffee in the morning, eat some cereal, tell ourselves we need to do laundry at the next stop, and see what unfolds.  Whatever happens, we know that at the end of the day we can look forward to snuggling down together in our little camper van that feels just like a Holiday Inn.