This is a BIG Trip!

The planning for this trip took a couple years. We originally wanted to ride our bikes around the perimeter of New Zealand, but have decided to settle for a 1-week Alps to Ocean guided tour. Then we will fly to Auckland and take a day trip. Following that we then board a Princess cruise for 2 weeks on the Royal Princess. Then, finally, a 1-week land tour in Australia. All total, it will be a month. Our poor doggie will miss us, and we will miss him, but Carrie will take good care of him at $60/day. Ouch.

Next, we have to figure out how to pack. Looking at the temperatures, it seems similar to San Diego, with some days in the 50's, and some in the 70's. We will need cruise clothes, bike clothes, dress-up clothes, and play clothes. Probably will take the Osprey set on the plane. I'm hoping we can share the big black bag and only have one checked bag. 

T-3.5 weeks: My first project was going through my dresses to see what fits, pack up what doesn't, and decide a fancy dress and a casual dress to take. I also brought a skort (combination of a skirt and shorts) with some tops to interchange for dinner. We were also bringing 4 hooks with for a laundry line, and electric plug adapters for Australia. 

T -3 weeks: Today got our daily meds packed, bars for bike ride, protein powder, and chamois butter. Saw rheumatologist, had x rays, and 20 vials of blood drawn. Thinking about packing clothes, but it can wait until we come back from visiting Misty next week.

T-2 weeks: Back from Misty's. We got Paul a different suitcase like mine. The one suitcase thing was a no-go because with so many activities, we need a lot of stuff. It seems cavernous, but it's filled with my 6 cubes:

1. bike clothes

2. cold-weather bike clothes

3. dressy cruise clothes

4. Shore excursion/ship clothes

5. socks and underwear

6. all the doodads- laundry line, soap, backup meds, glasses

Oh, and sandals, water shoes, dress shoes, hat, coat, swimwear, rash-guard, meds, misc.


I'm going with the packing cubes to keep everything organized. Paul doesn't want to. He would rather dig when he wants to find something. My bag is 48 lbs. Paul is not done yet.

T-4 days: All that's left is haircuts, manicures, and last-minute electronics. We got haircuts today and manicures tomorrow. Hopefully my new glasses arrive before we go. We got an e mail from our trip leader saying a total of 8 people will be on the bike trip. A nice sized group. I have confirmed all the hotels, flights, and independent activities. I had to split the trip info into 2 notebooks, because there is so much data.


I updated the legacy letters for the kids.

T-3 days: My glasses came in at Costco. Yeah!

Paul got me some lovely flowers for Valentine's Day:


T-2 days: We checked the travel visas in the phone. Mine were both there, but Paul's was missing for Australia. I have the paper copy, but he wants the electronic one like mine, too. He e-mailed the Australian government, but who knows if we will hear back before we leave Monday. Several hours later we got a canned e-mail saying they received the e-mail... Progress.

T-1 day.: Today, Paul got a gadget to connect wireless earbuds to the seat back of the plane, we hope. That way, we won't have to use the airline's really crappy headphones. He messed with them for quite a while, and got them to connect, so we will see how they work. (I'm bringing the plug-in kind too because I don't trust them.)

Everything is charging.... Batteries, Garmin, earbuds, phone.
ready to go! We got checked in online and there are a lot of forms to fill in to get into New Zealand. They are very restrictive about bringing things into the country. I declared my kind bars and my vegetarian protein powder, I hope I can take them in.

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