I saw an unexpected thing when I was shopping at Safeway the other day- TimTams! Better yet, they were on sale for $2 off!


( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #24
ZQN Airport - Mon, 15 Apr 2024, 10:30am

I'm sitting at the Air New Zealand lounge at ZQN airport in Queenstown, NZ. Yay, United Star Alliance Gold status... that gets me better treatment from airlines other than United. (United doesn't grant lounge access to Gold members on domestic flights in the US, though partners do in ( Read more... )

I don't have much in the way of souvenirs from our trip to Australia late last year. I mean, I've got tons of memories and gigs of photos. I don't have much in the way of tangible stuff. But that's par for the course for me. I tend not to buy a lot of stuff overseas. One thing I always try to do, though, is bring a bit of money home with me.


( Read more... )

I like to do a retrospective after big trips like the one to Australia last month. It's to understand what worked well, so I can reinforce doing it on subsequent travel, plus what didn't go so well so I can do it better next time. Usually I do them sooner than 2½ weeks after getting home... but 2½ weeks was how long it took me to clear my backlog ( Read more... )

My ankle is still sore from the trip to Australia. It's been over two weeks since getting home and now almost 3 weeks since originally injuring itThe first few days back home it was still sprained. Going up and down stairs in my house required slow, careful, and painful steps. After a few days that acute pain disappeared but there was a still a ( Read more... )

If all you've done is glance at my blog over the last few weeks you could be forgiven for thinking I'm still enjoying my trip to Australia. Well, I am still enjoying it... but only vicariously through my own memories as I catch up on publishing blogs about it. Note the by-line dates in those journal entries. I cam home over two weeks ago now ( Read more... )

Australia Travelog #48
Somewhere over the South Pacific - Sun, 31 Dec 2023, ??pm

I've been enjoying my unexpected upgrade aboard our flight home from Sydney for a few hours now. This op-up, or operational upgrade, came as we'd been sitting in our seats for over an hour while the aircraft was still at the gate. Ultimately we left about 90 minutes ( Read more... )

Australia Travelog #45
SYD Airport - Sun, 31 Dec 2023, 11am

We're back at Sydney Airport now, awaiting our flight home this afternoon. The drive here was fairly uneventful. So was the process of returning our rental car- which I drove now a total of over 700km in the wrong-side-of-the-road driving environment of Australia. As I noted previously ( ( Read more... )

Australia Travelog #44
Leura, NSW - Sun, 31 Dec 2023, 9am

Well, it's that sad time in almost any trip: packing to go home. We've spent about 30 minutes pulling our bags together. In a few minutes we'll leave the hotel, get in the car, drive to Sydney Airport, and await our flight home ( Read more... )

Australia Travelog #43
Leura, NSW - Sat, 30 Dec 2023, 9pmAs Hawk and I settle down in our hotel room this evening with our computers open and our phones and my camera recharging- our standard evening practice- I realize that all this week I've neglected to talk about the simple technology that makes it easy to use all these electronics: power ( Read more... )