Life on the Rocks
So, I’m back on the Ice again.
I’ll mainly be updating my G-rated blog – http://freezerburnt.wordpress.com/ – for the day-to-day goings on of my life while there. This, however, will be the forum for my less family-oriented posts, when such occasion should arise that I need to update you all.
I’ve only been here for 5 full days, so all I really have to say right now is this: despite all of the NSF’s and RPSC’s attempts to cut alcohol consumption on station, this place is still as booze-soaked as ever. I arrived on a Thursday with a bottle of Jaeger that was gone by the end of Saturday night (well, the wee hours of Sunday morning, to be more specific). Please do not think that I ALONE consumed the whole bottle; I had plenty of help, having offered said bottle up as a sort of lubricant for socialization in my lounge. But still… at this rate, my very limited stock of yummy beverages won’t last long into the season. I suspect many others are finding themselves in the same situation. And then, all we have is the limited bar selection at bar prices.
Conclusion: I fortell a sharp rise in McMurdian bootlegging.
Tribute to Summer
Nothing since June 24. Wow. Time to pick up some serious slack.
Back in June, my camera crapped out on me. It was about that same time that I seemed to lose interest in updating my blog. I know that blogs are supposedly primarily about the words you write, but I am often prompted by the pictures I take to delve into detail and write a blog post. So, without my camera and my amateur pursuit of visual poetry and prose, I quit writing. The dial-up in BFE, Washington, may have also had something to do with it…. who knows?
So, anyway, here I find myself not only with a camera once again and itching to click and write, but also BACK in CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND!! Wow. I mean, WOW. How time flies. Being on the ice last year, being a dining attendant in Antarctica, hitchhiking around the South Island of NZed, WWOOFing… A couple days ago, that all felt so long ago. But finding myself once again sitting in front of a crappy excuse for a computer at the YMCA on Hereford, my perspective’s been flipped and it seems like I never left. Did I go to bed last night and just dream that I spent a summer in Gifford? Which brings inspiration. A tribute to my brief but beautiful summer in Northeast Washington, before I can’t remember it at all…
And so. My Summer, or What I’ll Miss While in Antarctica:
Mountains, trees, farms, fields, dramatic skyscapes…
The Stranger Creek Valley - aka Home
…rivers…
The Columbia River near Gifford, WA.
…lakes.
Rhea picking a water lily for Kenzie.
Sunsets…
Sunset near Spokane, WA.
…grass, lilacs; the cool of the grass on your back balanced by the warmth of the sun on your face.
Sunset through our lilac bushes.
Frogs singing you to sleep.
A frog and a gardenia.
Humming, blossoming trees…
Blossoming crabapple tree @ home.
…full of honeybees.
Honeybee in the crabapple tree.
The moon.
The moonscape near home.
My childhood home; darkness; year-round Christmas lights.
My childhood home; Christmas lights up year-round.
The drive-in.
The drive-in.
My mountain.
Mt Rainier.
Roadtrips.
Me, driving down the Columbia River.
Wheatfield and glacial-deposit boulder on WA Hwy 2.
The road I've travelled... many times this summer.
Pets.
Dinky: she can't keep her tongue in her mouth.
Me & Whomper - he likes shoulders.
Horses.
Dad visiting with his favorite horse, Crissy.
Friends…
John & I: totally B-Team.
Christine, Me, and Alysse, in Portland for the beer pong tourney.
…friends…
Christine, Meredith, & Alex in the hammock @ the HB.
VIDEO:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cedartree_13/2900117807/
Family….
Me & Cooper.
Cooper really likes cupcakes.
Pooh-Pooh likes cupcakes, too, especially when I feed them to her.
…family…
Kaye-Kaye: making cupcakes for Grandma's bday.
Delie swinging in the elm tree.
Randy, "tennis style".
…family.
Rhea & Randy.
Cooper, Mom, & Randy winding down after Mom's bday party.
A great, relaxing summer. The end.
Shout Out
Just doing my duty as a good fan and spreading the word.
Some of you have heard me mention that there was an actual music scene while I was on the Ice. However, I have a feeling that some of you think I’m blowing it out of a certain orifice. Well, if any of you doubters (or anybody else, really) are interested in what an actual band from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, sounds like, check out the Legendary Beep Beeps: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Legendary-Beep-Beeps/28226016736, http://www.myspace.com/thelegendarybeepbeeps.
These guys were probably my favorite band to listen to on the Ice, not least because of Eli’s amazing progressive show of facial expressions while he was drumming. But drummer-theatrics aside, these guys are actually GOOD. And I mean “good” in real-world terms, not just “good” in relative proportion to geophysical isolation.
Hope you like-y!
Workin’ Hard for the Money
So, I got a temp job to tide me over until I could find something seasonal that was (reasonably) close to home. For the last three weeks, I was helping out at the recycling center in good ol’ Colville, WA. The benefits of working at a recycle center? Well, here are the ones I’ve discovered so far:
3) The boss man’s usually not really around, so breaks can get a liiiiiittttttllllleeeee extended. Nice.
2) All the free reading material you could hope for, courtesy of the Mixed Paper bin.
1) Nobody really notices when you have gas, ’cause the place stinks so damn bad to begin with. (Just bein’ honest 
)
Yep, those are the perks.
Sadly, I won’t be able to discover any more, as my employment there ended last Friday. I have since started a new job at a factory that produces STOVES (wood, pellet, and gas)! You betcha! I’m working in the receiving department. Today was my first day actually on the floor, so I’ve yet to discover what the real perks are. I mean, it is pretty cool that whenever you need some crucial supply (like your very own personal box cutter! that’s important for someone in receiving!), the manager just takes their manager card to the factory-supply vending maching by the lunch room (box cutters are A9, by the way…), but I don’t think that’s necessarily a perk, per-say. Will keep you updated, though.
Tootles! ~The Tree
Welcome to Heathen Gulch
Home, home on the farm
Where the dial-up still takes all day long
Where there’s still snow on the hills
And they say it might snow more still
But hey, at least it’s rent-free
Yes. I’m home. In Gifford, Washington. Where is Gifford, Washington, you might ask, as many have before you. Well, let me tell you. Gifford, Washington, is a “town” 70 miles north of Spokane, Washington, nestled on the banks of the Columbia River. *(This far north, it’s actually technically Lake Roosevelt, due to the Grand Coulee dam, but we in Heathen Gulch – as the home of my parents, the place where I grew up, was fondly dubbed – prefer to refer to the river’s pre-”progress” grandeur and stick to calling it the Columbia.) I refer to Gifford as a “town” in quotes because really it’s nothing more than a post office (well, okay, and there’s one house next to the post office). But, FYI, a place is a town if it has it’s own postal code, so that post office sitting on the side of Highway 25 apparently qualifies as one. And there you have Gifford.
You can imagine that life in Gifford doesn’t get too terribly exciting, especially given gas prices these days which makes it really difficult to seek excitement elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, the Stranger Creek Grange’s Mexican buffet in honor of Cinco de Mayo, which we attended tonight, was sure a hoot and a holler, but remember that Cinco de Mayo only comes once a year. So yeah, life could get pretty boring. But remember, I’m sitting in the living room of a place called Heathen Gulch conversing with the family that occupies it (mine).
Tonight’s topic of conversation, you ask? Well… I can only threaten to murder the gagnormous ficus sitting to the side of the living room, blocking the view between the one couch and the TV, so many times, so that’s off the menu. I can only laugh at the creme-puff on legs that used to be a dog for so long, so that’s out. There are only so many jokes that can be made at the expense of my sister’s schnoz – hereditary courtesy of my dear papa – at least until I think of more. And my family has already given me extensive shit about the lobster-and-paste state of my face (I forgot to put on sunscreen again while working all day outside with my bandana on – hello FOREHEAD LINE).
So, with all those topics exhausted, it is of course natural that the following topic would ensue: HEAVY PETTING.
Okay. Stop laughing. Seriously, my parents and I are in agreement – we don’t get why that expression is so funny. I mean, yeah, when I used it as a teenager, I used it kind of tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended), but I did use it. It was not an unfamiliar or unused term. But here sits my little sister laughing her ass off when my mom drops the term in passing. She thinks it’s hilarious, as (she says) do her friends. And I remember some people on the Ice also cracking up when I dropped the term in conversation. Seriously, is it that funny? I mean, as my mom pointed out in a very extensive and detailed description:
“First base is making out; second base is heavy petting; third base is finger action; and a home run is fucking.”
Well, thank you Mom for clearing that up!
Please don’t be shocked, appalled, disgusted, or discriminatory in any way. Yes, my mom did say the words “finger action,” but hey, that’s Mom. Those’re the ‘rents, that’s the fam.
This is HEATHEN GULCH. Suck it!
Home can be tedious, it can seem sometimes depressing that after four years of living on my own, I’m living back in my parents house, fights can and do happen. But then I remember, I’m living here for a reason, there are great reasons that I currently find myself without a house or money (yay traveling!), and if I wasn’t here, I’d be missing all of these incredibly open and enlightening conversations.
And hey, if I ever need to vent any real frustration, there’s always that ficus…
Trading Hemispheres
So last time I posted I had just returned from WWOOFing at the brewery. Just some final notes about WWOOF #2 that I forgot to mention before: 1) The day before I left, I had to help Kieran cut back the pine-tree hedges around three of their paddocks. BULLSHIT. WHY ON EARTH do there need to be hedges around these pastures? It just creates more work in addition to maintaining the actual fence lines, and creates 2x as much fence length, since the fence is put up on both sides of the hedge, instead of just having one line of fencing separating two pastures. Really, really silly. 2) On the morning of the day I left, I had to help Kieran round up their sheep (grown lambs) and sort them into two groups: staying and going to the slaughterhouse. Seriously sad. And I came out covered in sheep shit. Not fun in any sense.
Anyway, moving on. I got back to Chch Wednesday night and planned to spend a nice quiet evening at the Y, but I had gotten into that wine-every-night routine while at WWOOF #2 and that proved pretty hard to resist. So I went to the liquor store and bought the cheapest bottle of Riesling I could find – NOT a good idea. NZ Riesling isn’t as good as Washington Riesling to begin with, and then when you go for the cheapest bottle…. it’s kind of just a recipe for a headache later, but whatevs. I curled up with the bottle and a book and had my nice quiet night.
Thursday, the extended season-ers got off the ice, so I went searching for them that night. Found a big group at the Dux – RUSS WAS THERE!!! It was so good to see him, and I chit-chatted with him and the group sitting around him for a long time. Then I moved on with Matt C. and some of his friends to Bailie’s, where I met Kevin from central supply (had talked to him really briefly earlier, but hadn’t actually met him) and we were both on our way into a good buzz by that point, so we were pretty conversational. Whatever it was we were so devotedly discussing (can’t remember now), it was interesting enough that we continued it outside so he could smoke, and these two Kiwi guys (well, one Kiwi and one Scotchman-living-in-Kiwiland, to be exact) came up and joined in. They were really friendly, and took us to yet another bar, then tried to take us to a casino where Finn and I were turned away because our jeans were too tatty (fine by me), and then back to their place to drink pre-bottled Gordon’s gin and tonics. They were fun guys, and Chris (the Kiwi) gave Kevin his phone number so we could hang out with them later, but alas, I barely remember Kevin and I making it back to the Y, let alone what happened to the piece of paper with Chris’ info on it. So we didn’t get to hang out with them again, but got one good night out of the encounter.
I of course had the worst hangover I had had since I think my 21st birthday, so I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished on Friday – just some wandering and napping. I was supposed to meet up with Russ to hang out, but it never happened, and I lost track of everyone else, so I spent the rest of the weekend wandering around Chch alone and spending quiet nights at the Y. That was really okay, though. There were all sorts of craft and food booths set up at the Art Center on Saturday and Sunday, and lots of buskers, so I wandered through there quite a bit, had some really good kebabs, finally managed to tour the Canterbury museum, and took a final stroll through the botanical gardens (very autumnally colorful now).
Monday, I squeezed in one final “brekky” at the Honey Pot (eggs benny, of course) and then headed to the airport. At the bus stop, I ran into a few other icees, one of whom was also flying out – Tony from FEMC (?). Anyway, he was really friendly and chatty, and we walked from the CDC to the airport and checked in together, and then he insisted that I join him and a couple PHI guys at the bar before going through security. It was a pretty relaxing and entertaining way to pass the time at the airport, drinking free beer (“No, no, no! You were a DA. I’ve got this!”) and listening to stories about helo pilots messing with people trying to hook in cargo on the ground, or dropping snowmobiles from 1500 ft (or some ridiculously high height).
Then it was time to go. I left Christchurch, New Zealand, at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, April 21, and got into Seattle, Washington, at 4:16 p.m. Monday, April 21. So one hour and sixteen minutes of travel time, not too bad. 
But really though, the flights were pretty ok – EXCEPT. On the Auckland-LA flight, this fucking ADD guy was sitting in front of me, and would not sit still. I mean okay, maybe part of it was just trying to get comfortable, but he was CONSTANTLY moving around, and not just shifting, but like full-body jerks that would rattle tray table and nearly send my Savignon Blanc flying. I seriously debated slipping him some pills – but then decided not to waste them. 
And then, the flight from LA to Seattle – an approximately two-and-a-half hour flight – was in this TINY plane that was only three seats wide (one seat on the left side of the aisle, two on the right), and the two seats that were next to each other were crunched up tight, and there was only about one inch of clearance between my head and the ceiling when I was sitting. I was just thankful that I’m not actually claustrophobic, because I was finding it hard enough to deal with for that long.
Anyway, I’m in SeaTown now until Sunday (I believe), and then back to the eastside to see the fam and then start the job search. Probably won’t be anything worthy of posting for a while, so until my adventure life rests and reboots, be at peace my friends. -Cedes
Say WHAT?
This actually happened.
So last night was my last evening at WWOOF #2. As per usual, Kieran and I started in on the ale as soon as he got home with it, and we went through about two big bottles of it by the time Belinda was home and I had dinner ready (the minestrone turned out WONDERFUL, btw – at least I managed to do one thing right while I was there ). So we all sat down to eat, and naturally a couple bottles of red wine were brought out. We were pretty much wrapping up dinner, when Kieran realized it was time for Boston Legal (one of his regular shows, I guess), so we relocated – with what remained in our soup bowls and the rest of the wine – into the TV room. It was really pleasant and comfy, the three of us curled up on the couches sipping our wine and flipping between Boston Legal and The Daily Show (sorry, another aside: I <3 Jon Stewart).
Anyway, moving on: the Boston Legal episode was about this crazy chick who fell in obsessively in love with this guy on date one or something, and on date two – although the guy doesn’t want to have sex with her – she persuades him with some “oral arguments” (her words, not mine). So, after a successful oral debate, she got a… deposit, shall we say, and places it into a “test tubie” (again, her words) and takes it off to the fertility clinic to get a jump start on the family she’s trying to create with this guy who is way not into her. He ends up taking her to court and asking for a mandatory abortion. Ok, obviously this is TV drama (I hope people aren’t out there stealing sperm…), and we’re not going to support mandatory abortion, but Kieran, Belinda, and I naturally start discussing the issue and talking about what a sick freak the chick is, and Belinda and I maintain that the guy has legitimate reason to be upset – being as how he never consented to intercourse, therefore not ever consenting (even unconsciously or by default) to any accidental pregnancy, since, as Belinda said, “you can’t get pregnant through your mouth.”
(please remember the amount we had been drinking at this point, which probably aided in the discussion and taking place to begin with, and definitely what followed)
ME: “Yeah, it’s medically impossible. ……. As far as we know….” [I'm pouring more wine here]
KIERAN: “Well maybe if you girls would swallow more, we’d know.”
WHAT?!?!?!?!?! Did he really just SAY that????? Oh my good god, I was in the middle of pouring a glass of wine, and when he said that, I skipped any sort of audible giggling and went straight to that silent I’m-laughing-so-hard-I’m-gonna-die stage, while simultaneously trying to cover my face which had gone a bright shade of tomato. I somehow managed to keep the wine (red, remember) off the floor, but it was a close one, and Kieran quickly reached over to retrieve the bottle from me (to fill his own glass… oh boy), although I’m not sure how he managed as he was laughing pretty violently, too.
Oh wow. Anyway, needless to say, it was a very interesting, entertaining, and educational stay at WWOOF #2. Had a blast.
I’m back in Chch now. I think I may be heading home a little sooner than planned – $$’s getting short and the traveling is starting to wear me out. Hope to be seeing you soon, -Cedes
The Night of the Brew Moon
So, as you should know from my previous posts, I’m currently working at a farm and brewery in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Just wanted to give a little update about what it’s been like to work here.
I arrived here Thursday night and quickly found that the guy I’m working for (Kieran) is definitely a strong and unique personality, and he likes to *take the piss* whenever he can. On Friday, I started the day by weeding the driveway, but about midday, Kieran came to the house to fetch me to the brewery to help him out. He had me label some recent batches of ale – using a hand-turned labeler on which you have to hand-stamp the expiration date onto each label – empty some hops from a recent batch, and mill some malt. Me, being my usual graceful self, started out by spilling the equivalent of about a pint of malt onto the concrete. Whoops. I quickly got the hang of it, though, and set to it for about the next hour or so. When I was getting close to done with the three and a half sacks I had to get through, he came to ask for my help with prepping some more hops, and informed me that there were a couple WWOOFers out front looking for work, and he told them if they could keep from spilling the malt he might have them take my place and send me packing…. Shit. I never said I wasn’t clumsy! All good fun, but I did feel a bit sheepish.
Then, that night, they had me mash some potatoes for dinner. Ok, first of all, it wasn’t my fault that they cooked the damn potatoes too long. But then they told me to put in “milk and loads of butter.” Apparently the U.S. standard measurment of “loads” is differnet from the Kiwi one – I was informed that it needed more of each. And I was also informed that I needed to be taught how to properly mash the potatoes, that they need some special move of the wrist to whip them at the end. I apologized for my lack of skill with the hand masher, adding that I usually made mashed potatoes with an electric mixer. I was unsurprised by Kieran’s retort: “Americans!”
Anyway, Belinda (Kieran’s better half) went up to Wellington on Saturday for a party, so it was just Kieran and I here that night. We made a decent dinner out of leftovers (fried mashed potatoes and cold lamb)- and a salsa made from tomatoes and cilantro fresh from the garden – and started drinking some of the unlabeled bottles of beer Kieran had brought home from the brewery that day while we were cooking. I had mentioned earlier that day something about having learned a bit of salsa dancing in Mexico, and so Kieran insisted on having me show him the basic steps. So we danced salsa, drank beer, cooked dinner, drank more beer while we ate, and then decided we had better finish the open bottle of red wine on the counter, and then (what the heck!) open another. We then moved into the TV room, where we flipped back and forth (remember: men hunt and women nest…. between “Best of Show” and a Madonna vs. Michael Jackson music video showdown. By that time, the beer and wine had definitely started to set in, and we were talking all sorts of crap – politics, entertainment, people in general, waxing philosophical… It was pretty funny getting tipsy with someone my parents’ age and knowing as we were talking that we were feeling a lot smarter than we had half an hour before.
Anyhoo. I’ve been spending most of my time since then weeding and picking vegetables. Tonight I’m supposed to make the minestrone for dinner…. another opportunity to fuck up and be denounced as an “American!” Yippee skippy. But it really is a good time, and we all of us need a bit of humbling now and again.
Well my friends, until there is something else worth writing about, I leave you, as ever, your clumsy “American!” (said dismissively) friend, -Cedes
WWOOF-WWOOF
For those of you who are unaware, WWOOF = Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Basically, there are farms/establishments that follow organic or natural farming practices (to various degrees), and they have people (WWOOFers) come stay with them. The WWOOFers get a place to sleep and food in exchange for manual labor. Not a half bad deal when you’re running short of funds…
The first place I went to was a farm not far out of Christchurch (in Lyttelton). They had a ton of property that bordered the beach, gorgeous views all around, and I stayed in a little apartment down the hill from the house with sliding glass doors that open directly east, so each morning I would wake up to amazing sunrises and the sweet smell of hay (the other half of the building I slept in was a hay shed). Amazing. They keep a Connemara stud, and had somewhere upwards of 20 horses of various ages, so I got to help take care of them. I was there for almost two weeks, and by the end of it, I was starting to be trusted more and more with the horses, and even got to help out with training and working the younger ones. Getting to feed, groom, and train horses was only a small part of the work I did, of course - I spent much more time shoveling their poo. But hey, as far as poo goes, horse isn’t that bad. Kind of even like the smell – brings back fond memories of my spent youth. One thing I did learn, though, that I had previously never taken the time to notice: stallions are much better “housebroken” than mares. Seriously. A stallion will poop in the same pile (or one of very few piles) over and over, so when you go to shovel it up, it’s all right there for the taking. Mares, on the other hand, just go WHEREVER. Like, “yeah, it’s no big deal – somebody will be along with a *plastic dust pan* to clean up after my ass soon. No worries.” Fucking women, I tell you. Anyway, enough with the poo. Aside from horse work, I did some composting, some burning and brush dragging, and definitely some taking care of and entertaining the youngest members of the family. They were really fun, but sometimes a bit too exuberant – at least I was able to escape to my hay shed at the end of the day. The hay shed/apartment was sort of romantic – there was no electricity, and in order to preserve the solar flashlight, I would read by candlelight at night. Laying on a cot; a candle stuck in a wine bottle and a couple more melting into an old cast-iron frying pan; the smell of hay; the sounds of horses off in the distance and mice in the walls - it felt kinda 1920’s migrant-worker-ish. Of Mice and Women.
Anyway, on Tuesday I went back into Christchurch and spent that day and the next relaxing, showering and laundering, and doing some previously neglected computer tasks. Then yesterday – Thursday, 10 April, the seven-week mark of my New Zealand travels – I came up to Amberley, where I am enjoying my second WWOOFing stint at Brew Moon Brewery. Talk about WOW. It’s shaping up to be quite the experience. As soon as the guy picked me up yesterday, he started *taking the piss*, and I was starting to wonder how I was going to get along for six whole days. But I think it’s all pretty good natured, and last night, as soon as we got to (the amazingly quaint and charming) house, they started offering me some samples from the brewery. And then it turns out SHE works at a winery - so brewery products before dinner, winery products WITH dinner. My cheeks were a little flushed by the end of the evening and I was running at the mouth whenever I was asked my opinion or input. And then after dinner, he goes into the TV room and turns on (dun-dun-DUUUUN) The Daily Show AND Flight of the Concords (flips between the two). I was laughing my ass off for the next half hour, probably much assisted by the before- and during-dinner libations, but hey, it was a great time. And he wants me to teach him some piano stuff. I really think the next five days are going to be fun, albeit perhaps somewhat humbling as I continue to be made fun of for my despairingly Yankee ways. (I was informed last night that six months is nowhere NEAR long enough to be gone from the states, and I could do with a bit more time yet – so guys, don’t know if I’ll be making it back or not
I’ll add some pics to go with the narrative as soon as I can get them uploaded, but I gotta run now – my dark ale’s calling!! -Cedes
Revitalization
(Copied and pasted from old blog – originally posted 7 April 08)
I’m baaaa-aaaack. Not that the world was at any terrible disadvantage with me not updating my blog for the last ten months, but still. I’m feeling a small moment of accomplishment at picking up the metaphorical reins again and continuing this endeavor, and therefore saving it (albeit only temporarily, perhaps) from becoming just another abandoned project. Soooooooo, then. What to write? Well.
I’m currently in the *charming* little city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The asterisks placed around the adjective of choice in the preceeding sentence should not be taken in an entirely sarcastic manner; the town IS, in fact, slightly charming. The sarcasm only comes into play when I remember that I have visited the aformentioned city no less than five times in the last two months. It’s some kind of vortex, I guess, and even if it is a *charming* vortex, there’s just something that inspires resentment in that which you cannot escape. You follow me? Well poo on you, too, and let’s keep going.
I’ve been in New Zealand now for six weeks and five days, ever since my contract job in Antarctica ended. You might think it is a rather small country to be in for that amount of time; that’s compounded even more by the fact that I’ve spent the entire time on the South Island. But there have been a plethora of different things to do and different ways of traveling so as to keep me satisfactorily interested and occupied.
I have had four phases of seeing NZ so far: Phase 1 – I was fresh off the ice, and there were tons of ice people still about. I spent a good number of days being slightly overwhelmed and overstimulated at all the sights, sounds, and SMELLS. My goodness! Who could have imagined what an impact each individual tree could have on a nose that had previously been used to smelling nothing but McMurdo Galley deep-fryers, food waste bins, and Willy Field bathrooms? Let me tell you – the sense of smell is an amazing and under-valued gift to the human race. Delightful, truly delightful. But back to the general description of this phase, I played about for a couple days with a couple ice friends – swimming in rivers and camping under the stars – then passed a glorious week at a lakehouse in Wanaka with the DA folk (and honorary guests included in said group). It was a wonderful, relaxing, albeit lazy time.
Phase 2 – the Morgen-and-Cedar story. After leaving Wanaka, Morgen and I set off on an experimental journey of hitchhiking and tramping. We hitched from Wanaka to Queenstown, where we rented some of the essential camping gear – choosing to ignore the less essential things (like rainwear in my case) – and hitchhiked north up the side of Lake Wakitipu to Glenorchy, from whence we set off on a 3-day & 2-night tramp on the Routeburn Track. I can honestly say that while attempting an alpine backpacking treck without any real previous training in said activity is not the smartest thing in the world, it can also lead to a beautiful, inspired, and triumphant hike. My ass was somewhat kicked when, on day 2, we hiked 13.6 kilometers, climbing from an elevation of 700 m up to 1277 m and back down again; but I can also say that it was some of the most gorgeous scenery I’ve ever encountered, and never had I felt I had so earned the right to see it. Of course, we had no showers during those 3 days (4, actually, if you count the day before in Glenorchy), we’d been sweating profusely, and it rained on us at the very end of the tramp. So when Morgen and I hauled our rain-and-sweat-logged bodies to the road and stuck out our thumbs, we had a rather dubious outlook on our chances of finding a ride back to Queenstown. But, in accordance with the luck we had been blessed with so far in our hitching experiments, an even sweatier and dirtier hiker picked us up and took us over 150 kilometers to where is was no longer raining, and we caught one more lift into Queenstown. We retrieved our belongings at the hostel where we’d left them, had long luxurious showers, and made a savory meal on (gasp!) an actual stove rather than the little gas cooker that had been warming our ramen noodles and instant potatoes over the last 3 days. The next day we started our hitch from Queenstown to Christchurch, getting 350 kilometers in 3 rides on day one, and then going the additional 156 kilometers on day two. All in all, hitchhiking is an amazing way of getting around, both because it saves TONS of $$$$$$$$, and because you meet some of the coolest (and weirdest) characters that way.
Phase 3 – the Parental Supervision phase. Yes, my mommy and daddy visited me in New Zealand. While that may seem laaaaaaaame to some, those some have never met MY parents. They can be pretty damn fun to travel with – plus they pay the bills. *wink* With them lending me some badly needed financial support, I was finally able to BUNGY JUMP (sooooooooooooooooo fun!), plus got to do some more expensive means of sightseeing, such as a day cruise on Milford Sound, a water taxi into hiking trails in Abel-Tasmen National Park, winery visits in Marlborough, and whale watching in Kaikoura. We made a loop, heading south from Chch to Oamaru to see the blue penguins, inland to Mt Cook and Queenstown (where we bungeed off the Kawarau Bridge), over to Milford Sound (and back, since it’s kind of a dead-end road out there), then up the West Coast to Abel-Tasmen, and south again through Kaikoura to Chch. It was a great time, and my parents even managed to succeed where so many of us had failed in finding Howard, sans entry fees, if you know what I mean. So, very enjoyable couple of weeks – thanks, Mom & Dad!
Phase 4 – La Vida Sola. Once the parental units left, I was all alone, no ice folk left to cushion my travels and coax out my extremely shy and introverted self. Ha-ha, I know. I spent a lax day or two in Chch, sunbathing in the botanic gardens (the rose garden is in full bloom – magnificent!) and seeing a movie. Then I headed out to Lyttelton for my first go at WWOOFing (google it if you don’t know). I found a spot at a horse farm, where I spent the majority of my time shoveling horse poo (sometimes cleaning entire 3-horse pastures with gloved hands and a plastic dust pan – uuuuummmm, o-k), turning compost piles, catching horses, tidying the house, and making food for the three little kids. I also got do some horse grooming and training of the youngsters, though, so that was really nice. Got me reminiscing about those long-gone days when I spent half my time on horseback and showed. *le sigh* Gone are the days of youth, my friends. The family was big, loud, crazy, and great. I had a wonderful time, and highly recommend WWOOFing to anybody who would like to cut travel expenses and really get to know the people of the place you’re traveling.
Right now, I’m taking another couple of days off to relax (and get regular showers and laundry) before heading north to my second WWOOFing venture: Brew Moon Brewery. That’s right, my friends – the beer calls.
And now, this internet session must be ended. It’s so f’ing expensive, it’s taking payment right out of my prison wallet.
Tootleloo, my people. -Cedes
