1000 Days!

1000 Days! It has been One Thousand days since we left San Diego. What a vacation aye? I wonder if you all will even understand us after nearly three years speaking British (and Australian or New Zealand) English. We recon, not very well. But we miss you mates. We were discussing over tea (that’s dinner), how much has changed. I  don’t think we could figure out how to use a dryer anymore. We would probably forget not to drink water from the tap. Driving from the left side of the car will be weird. We walk around in the rain (not run) without a thought. Well maybe that is not completely true; we still let weather dictate more than most folks around us. 

This journey has not gone along as we expected. Nope, it has gone way better. How long did the neighborhood pool expect we would be away? No one bet more than six months. Truth is, we did not think it would last this long either. Usually in these mile marker postcards I put together some statistics: number of hotels, Cities or miles. Well that is just too hard anymore. Lots of Europe, most of the UK and Ireland, a good chunk of Australia, and four laps of New Zealand. Lots of cities, hundreds of different beds, thousands and thousands of miles. Let me just say that we have had our New Zealand rental car so long, it has needed service three times. We have bought the replacement windshield wipers and added oil. Who else has washed a rental car? We no longer have California driver’s licenses. We are however, still paying California taxes. Maybe if we start now, Mark can put together some numbers for our three year milestone, and I can at least count the pets we have pet sat. God knows, Google knows where we have been, how much we spent and who we sit near. 

We thought we would find a place we loved and stay put. That has not happened until now. And unfortunately New Zealand does not want us to stay. We will be pushing off from here pretty soon, we recon. But where we will go is still unknown. 

The pandemic is a real spanner in our lifestyle, that is for sure. We are as disrupted as everyone else; we hope the world will get back to a place where we can resume traveling somewhat freely, sometime soon.  But when life gives you lemons…we won the lemonade lottery. 

Being able to freely travel New Zealand for over a year, without other tourists getting in the way, has been the traveler’s dream of a lifetime. A once in a lifetime opportunity. We think we have done that opportunity right. There are very few stones left unturned by us here. We have launched our blog. Work in progress, but it’s coming along. It is leaning a bit toward New Zealand, we need to get back out on the road to change that. Or reach back into our archives; that was the plan anyway, but fun keeps getting in the way of work.

What are  our plans for the future? Well they are flexible. Covid has taught us to relax our planning. No longer can we make our travel plans three months out, three weeks is the most we can expect. 

After 1000 days of chronic travel, we can honestly say there are still more places we still want to visit, than we have visited. Every time we talk to fellow travelers, we find out about another destination we want to go. One Thousand days more is definitely required.