Camp Champions Blog

[I JUST REALIZED THAT WE NEVER POSTED THIS ONE.  SO HERE IT IS, 3 MONTHS LATE.]

We are back in the states.  To be clear, we are not home.  Instead, we are in a 7 hour layover in Los Angeles airport having already taken 2 flights and been up for 23 hours.  We are a perky and happy lot.

Tomorrow we fly home.  We do not know quite how to feel about it.

Part of me is delighted the end is here.  After all, we have had a LOT of togetherness.  Nerves are a bit frayed.  Each of us has discovered at least one newfound pet peeve within the family.

We are in Christchurch, the scene of the massive earthquake roughly a year ago.  Some estimate that this event created more monetary damage than any previous earthquake.

We are having some trouble processing the disaster.  To be honest, we have not personally witnessed any true disasters.  My grandmother was an infant during the Galveston flood of 1901, but I did not really understand the stories.  We had a tornado in the Marble Falls area 10-12 years ago, but we did not really see the effects of the tornado.

We had an uneventful day.

With only one day left in the Fiddler (our campervan’s license tag is FDL161, so it is the Fiddler), I feel a compulsion to describe life in a campervan.

The six of us share roughly 135 square feet of living space (that includes the bathroom and kitchen counterspace.  Put differently, we have 20 square feet of floor space when both lower beds are in use.

Today we did a little eco-touring.  We went to Penguin Place, a private penguin habitat on the Otago Peninsula.  The Otago Peninsula is on the southwest coast of the South Island.  The South Island is really different from the North.  The North Island seems heavily influenced by Maori culture and multi-culturalism.  By contrast, the South Island feels like Great Britain turned upside down.

The English all settled in Christchurch, the most northerly of the three major South Island cities.  The Scots settled in Dunedin to the south and the Irish created Incavargill near the southernmost tip.

Since yesterday's blog was so quick and devoid of photos, I thought you might enjoy a few quick pics from the Ben Lomond hike.

We are starting the final week of our 22 weeks of travel.  I have not missed a day of blogging.  Admittedly, I did not post every day, but I write even when I had no internet connection.

As a rule, I have avoided writing blogs just to keep the record going.  Instead, I want to share something that will amuse or inform.

Susie has a fan beyond our family.