These Are The Days

We've been busy. Wednesday, a five-mile walk round trip to check in on the capable and (yes) uber friendly James, who went over the Rover at Art's direction and pronounced it solid.

 

Drove it exactly one block to the detailing guy Jonathan for a clean-up. Just as friendly, he had a spit-polished speed shop where Art met an old friend, an E-type tricked out to within an inch of its life.

Meandered back through yet another charming Auckland city park, with a fun swing and happy boy.

Went to AA (NZ's version of AAA, despite what you're thinking) and moved car registration and got new sticker, a surprisingly painless process.

 

Yesterday, up for a fridge clean-out breakfast: kumara, egg, blueberries, prunes, banana. Packed and stashed our bags in the lobby for an hour and headed back to AA for maps--lots of 'em. We're picking up the Rover today and departing Auckland after 15 days and we are READY.

To the coffee shop next door for a celebratory flat white.

(Thinking: road trip road trip road trip!)

Said goodbye to our beloved and capable front-desk staff at Barclays. "And the trip begins!" says Aerie, almost as excited as we are. Taxi to Jonathon's to load the Rover--whoop! Just like home.

Time to gas up and hit the left side of the road...

Auckland 90 min south to Hamilton to check out a caravan (camper) for sale on TradeMe, NZ's version of ebay. Delightful Rosemary answered all our questions and told us it had been the hottest summer on record in NZ. Not a bad camper (a 1976 Chevron Lightweight), but needs some work and we are beyond ready to move. Renting/buying a caravan has been a bit more challenging than we imagined.

Found a modest motel in Hamilton. The word motel has a different connotation here. It means self-catering, which means kitchen facilities like sink, range, dishes, fridge. micro. Also, any time you check into one of these, they give you a little carton of milk, to go with the tea and instant coffee they provide. A new tradition.

But after this long day it's not milk we have in mind...

Then we walked around town, made a picture of decorative public toilets (why don't we have these in Chi?), savored some winning Indian food--butter chicken--so tired, the end.

PS: not only did our driver do an exceptional job today, he's got a pretty nice ride.
PPS: the wire transfer from Chicago was $40 short. And that really is all I'm going to say about it.