Learning a few things

Rita's done a nice job describing the places and experiences of our trip. She does that so well, doesn't she? My quick update is a little more boring...

Driving your home can be like owning one. We've had a few honey-doo fixes (toilet, water pump, etc.) I've had to take care of. We also have some repairs to have done. A big truck kicked up a rock that hit the wind-screen early in our trip, causing us quite a scare and leaving a good sized divot. Took it to a place who said it was too big to repair, so we'll likely have to replace the windshield (not covered by insurance).

I've been able to pull out the guitar a couple of times, but no where near as much as I thought (and hoped). As Rita describes, our days our usually pretty packed and by the time we get to sundown I'm plum tuckered (frequently with a sore shoulder from driving curves most of the day). There's also a little more stress than expected. Navigating the 21 ft. diesel 5-speed, shifting with left hand, sitting on the right, driving on the left, next to precipitous cliffs tends to require significant concentration. One false move could have disastrous results. Serious stuff!

My preparations for technical support are also a bit lacking. The thought was that internet access would be widely available, which it is. The plan was to clear chips and upload/backup images to our online storage site (we've shot about 2,000 so far). Most internet places here charge by the size of bandwidth used online, in addition to time. So, an hour may get you 100Mb of digital transfer. Heck, that's 1/20th of one of our high-definition photos. We ended up buying a small USB drive to offload images to in the interim. Still working on a plan for uploading for our blogs (sorry Rita's posts haven't been accompanied by the excellent images).

Prices are a little higher here, which may be expected. The NZ exchange rate brings things close to the US. Diesel (used by our RV) here is about $4.20 a gallon, so getting that unit was better than gas at $6.40 a gallon. There are certainly costs involved with having the convenience of an RV, which may turn out to be slightly more expensive than renting a car and doing homestays/B&Bs. It is nice, however, to have the flexibility of deciding where we're spending the night as our day ends - where ever that is.

Jeff