Just another day in Paradise: Day 3 of the North Island Hippie Tour

The Whole Group (except me behind the camera). We are standing either above or between the Pillars of Hercules in the Kaimanawa Mountains. We came across this place in search of our next good camping place, which turned to be a great place "back in the bush" where we managed a nice fire and were bombarded by the possums. 

This is crazy man Max- at one point during our trip, Max pulled out this full sized chicken (less the feathers and head) and starts eating it raw. This man is insane! Well the next day we went on a big hike, he brought the chicken with him, and once again began eating the thing. He offered to the group, to my surprise they all wanted a piece. I'm thinking NO NO Salmonella! As I stared at the wiggly slimy chicken- Kiwi Mike explained to me it was cooked, better yet smoked. The Joke's on me! It actually was cooked; and it was good. Though from this day forward I will still have that mental image of him diving into this raw chicken and thinking to myself, "Could he be a Cannibal?" 
  
Can't go camping without a bit of fun. It's also a better view from up-top.


Near the Pillars of Hercules we found an abandon dam where some people decided to wash up. It was Freezing! Look at there faces! Now that's dedication to sanitation, well actually they just wanted to have some good old fashion Fun. I didn't get in on this one if you couldn't tell.
 

Day 1 and 2 of the North Island Hippie Tour

So I decided that I need to get a better look at the North Island of New Zealand before school started, and just happened to run into 12 other people who had the same idea. Well more like we all hooked up on a whim and hopped into a van not knowing each other. Well it may relieve you to know (it did me) that we did bring 1 Kiwi guy with us. By the way a Kiwi is a local, we called him Kiwi Mike (the guy with the dreads in the sun glasses). We took off Thursday and drove until we found a nice little beach just North of New Plymouth where we whipped out our togs and jandals (swimsuits and sandals) and took a dip in the Tasman Sea.

This is a really rough Idea of what we did. I wasn't driving as I have not gotten ahold of the whole lefty road and wheel thing yet, and the driver didn't really know where we were going because we didn't have a plan.

(Left: Kiwi Mike, Julie,Cassandra,Nick,Marika,Mike, Eve)Our camping style was what you might call "modest" as we all brought the bare essentials. However we were lucky enough to have two camping stoves and thus warm dinners! The first night we were desperate for a place to stay so we talked to a lifeguard training center and stayed in their backyard.

This is our first recreational breakfast- I have to say we did alright for ourselves in the food department.

Our only "shower"

I saw my first possum that night, thought it was a cat. They are a lot like raccoons as they dig through garbage and will try to get their sneaky paws into anything. And I should add a couple nights later they surrounded Cassey and I when we were trying to get into the trailer which was full of food. OO OOO and later that next morning Amanda woke up to her finger being sucked on by what we think was a hedge hog.

After a long day driving we found a great spot to jump in the lake. Though we had cool weather the water was just the perfect temperature- just after Kiwi Mike steered us to a natural hot springs where skinny dipping wasn't an issue.

Mailing Address

For those of you who were asking for my mailing address:

A. Capri Gillam

Atawhai Village

2 Keiller Place Room 5

Palmerston North 5301

New Zealand

Sheep Country

As much as Montana is refered to as "Cowboy Country" and as much as we like to joke about Wyoming and Sheep- New Zealand is loud and proud about their Sheep and Dairy Industry. And so our first field trip was to see such a thing. Imagine... going to another country and the first thing they want to show you is Cows and Sheep...

Well I have to admit the whole thing was Quite entertaining! We watched as the sheep dogs would tactfully round up the sheep listening to the whistles of the herder. These dogs will stop chasing on a dime, chase left- right, jump over obstacles all at the cue of the herder! Later we had a go at wrangling and sheering a sheep.

Afterwards we watched as the cows loaded themselves onto a carousel that spun while they were being milked. It beats the old way of doing things. Actually about 5% of the world's milk production comes from here in Kiwi country.

This was one of the events at orientation- team building olympics basically. This here is a caterpillar line where the person in front and back can see while everyone else is blind. The goal is to lead the team through obstacles as quickly as possible before the other teams.

* The guy leading is Max- he and about 10 other people, myself included, are going to take a four day trip around the North Island before classes start- Granola style! We are renting a 12 passenger van and going to lead off to our hearts content. More on that later...

These are some of the many great people I've met, In front is Rheyda (pronounced Rita) from the Philippines , Behind her is Katie from Germany, and in the back is Ryan from Canada.

Kia Ora

The Walk to campus is absolutely Beautiful! It's a hop skip and a quick stroll away... I'll take you on a tour:

      

  

Here in Palmerston North the flowers grow wildly and the trees are humming tunes as the cicadas have come out. The greenery is so lush it hides the city within it's forrest and shoes are optional.

I love that after showering you don't get goosebumps from the cold air outside and that your skin glows with delight from the warm moisture in the air.

I've decided to decorate my room with twisted diamond wood along with the treasures and from the sea. The forest floor has a beautiful variety of tree and shrub litter that makes gorgeous potpourri.

 

Strange differences

• I was asked the question if it was weird to see the water in a toilet go the other way, well the water is much less in the toilet and it just kinda sucks right up, However there are two buttons to flush with, ere are two buttons to flush with one for #1 and two (both buttons) for #2.
  
• There are two sink fossits one spout is hot and one is cold- they don't mix like back home. Also there is only one sink bay in the kitchen instead of two, apparently you don't rinse your dishes after washing them...?
• Toggles- swim suit
• Kia ora: Thank you, good luck, good health (common phrase)
• Tea: dinner
• Kai: food

An Introduction to New Zealand- The first 24 hours.

I Freakin' Love New Zealand. The people are incredible! When I arrived at my new flat, I met two of my new flatmates- we definitely clicked- and I had not been in the house for more than 10 minutes before I we were dragged out to meet Kristin's posse where we sang karaoke, played Cranium, and brought out the bubbles and play dough. I can't forget the musical instruments- there was one of everything and no one who could actually play. Apparently, "everyone who comes into this house has to play the drums, it's like an initiation." I met over 20 people last night! Not bad for only having been in Palmerston for about two hours. Well, actually I owe the honors to Kristin, she made the whole gig quite an introduction for Julie and I (Julie is another flatmate- there's 4 other than myself and I've only met 2 of them.

The airplane ride was Interesting. 

to make a long story short- when we landed the 747 in NZ, we lost all power. Apparently something came unplugged when we landed.... It all worked out. I guess it was a lucky day. Another story to further the short story... The earlier flight to LA from UT was much worse though, I have to say I thought I was going to die. At the airport there was an announcement that the plane was being checked for mechanical problems and that it may be a few minutes before boarding. Well once we all got arranged in our squishy seats, the pilot announced that the plane was too heavy. So... They threw off a stewardess along with her luggage. Apparently she didn't weigh enough though, so then they started throwing off our baggage. "The good news folks is that we got all of you on this flight, however if you cannot find your luggage please make a claim and we will be shipping it to you," said the captain. At that point I was certain my luggage got tossed aside as it was some of the heaviest. The plane engines started to warm up... but the left engine wasn't firing right. After de-icing the plane 2x, they had both engines running more smoothly, for now. Finally in the air about 2 and a half hours late, we hit awful weather. The turbulence was so bad that we actually had to re-route the plane to fly over the Pacific Ocean around a thunderstorm and back to LA. Then the left engine began it's noises again... When the pilot gets on the intercom with a under tone of panic, "stewardess immediately stop serving beverages and take a seat", you get a little concerned. It wasn't the only time he made such an announcement. All I can say is Thank God we landed safely in LA. *this story is based on real facts and a genuine experience. No animals were harmed in the making. Luggage was later found where it was suppose to be.

I hope i find you all well. I certainly don't feel as if I am on the other side of the globe as much as perhaps in another state in the USA. Perhaps that is because I haven't been to see the Ocean yet. Well I'm certainly keeping things interesting; I had my foot sculpted with playdough into a "piece of art"? and this new friend of mine ate it off of my foot. ...  ...   I'll just add a photo later, it was interesting.

I look forward to hearing from you all, I'll have to take some photos of this beautiful place and put them up. Catch you all later!

New Zealand Arrival

Hello Everyone!!! As you have probably guessed I am now in NEW ZEALAND!! I don't have much time to blog, but I should say I seem to be waisting no time getting to know the people here! It is absolutely increadible here! I'll catch you guys up later, but for a little forsight- I had my foot decorated with playdough last night as we played games and watched movies. I'm already having a blast! I miss you guys, wish you were here!

Capri

The Last Photos of the Trip

Map home from San Francisco

A Burger, Chopsticks, tons of good music, and 3,000 miles later, we finally made it HOME!!

Catching up with everything... It's been a busy/crazy trip home running at the front of storms. So we're safe and sound back in Bozeman!

So...

Day 5 - New Years Stuff

Total Mileage: 1060.3  (figure about 16 miles total in San Fran)

Location: San Francisco- The Bay Area

Day 6- (the 1st) Same Stats as Day 5, we already had a blog for the day...

Day 7- (the 2nd) LEFT SAN FRANCISCO!!

So even though we left San Fran, we spent most of the day there. Bonnie made arrangements with MUNI and BART to chauffeur us to the Exploritorium and then to Pixar Studios. By the way MUNI and BART are a bus and a train. 

We stopped at the Palace of Fine arts which was Gorgeous! It was a seemingly timeless place where we photographed swans and the beautiful palace. Then we finally made our way back to the Exploritorium where we learn about rings of air bubbles, our senses like seeing the red blood cells in the back of our eyes and had over come social reform and drink out of a toilet fountain. 

At Pixar we had a Fantastic tour led by our personal guide Geoffrey! Though we had to leave our cameras behind, the secrets of Pixar and luxiourous life of their employees we couldn't deny! Workers have access to pools, fitness rooms, out door tracks, tons of indoor games, and an incredible outdoor theater. Everyone had toys and stuffed animals in their office, and they were encouraged to USE THEIR IMAGINATION- one guy turned his office into a Castle!

 

We hit the road finally by 6pm, and spent the night in Redding at the Hilton (references previously).

Daily Mileage: 212.6

Total Mileage: 1272.9

Location: San Fran/ Redding

Day 8

So I wanted to mention this trip was the 1st time I ever drove in 7 lanes of traffic, WOW! We had a Gas scare, We ALMOST RAN OUT!  After leaving the big city, I forgot how apart gas stations could be...   but we made it. Again this is when we were driving like 

HE(double Hockey Sticks), and the we were warned the I-5 will be closed in the very near future.

So most of the day was driving, but we found this great mall with message chairs! I could have fed that thing money all day long.

Daily Mileage: 532.3

Total Mileage: 1805.2

Location: On the Road... (Redding, Ca to Reedsport, OR at the Salty Seagull Motel)

Day 9

We saw the Sand Dunes, a quick look at the Ocean, but the Weather was coming in fast and the news warned of 120mph winds! So we headed inland- Fast!

So Hello Beach, Goodbye Beach

We also stopped in Portland, OR to visit a friend of mine, Chris Ives, and Bonnie got to visit the Portland Art Museum and I got to hang out downtown at an awesome coffee shop. We also made a point of purchasing some New music: Fiest, Robin Williams Live Comedy, Michael Bubble, Colby Caillat.

Daily Mileage: 388.2  (we slept in)

Total Mileage: 2193.4 - by this time Bonnie was ready to kill me, and vice versa.

Location: On the Road- Reedsport, Ca to Hermiston, WA

Oh by the way I previously mentioned the hotel we got in Hermiston the Budget Inn, Doesn't Exist!

Day 10

Played Laser Tag at Laser Quest, we went to a movie, Juno, with my cousins in Spokane. They were so kind as to let us stay at their place in Spokane for the night!! Thanks Again!!! 

Location: OTR- Hermiston, WA to Spokane, WA

Daily Mileage: 226.1 - I don't know what we did all day, tried to relax! We were Tired!

Total Mileage 2419.5

Day 11

Thank God We are home! We stopped in Missoula, ate lunch at Applebee's and went to Rockin' Rudy's a totally awesome random gift and toy store if you've never been there! Then we booked it on home!

The weather was suppose to be "cation do not travel", but we found a bright blue "summer sky" streaked along our pathway home, as far as we were concerned all roads were Green to go ( a reference to the weather map we used the whole trip).

We had a WoNdErFuL trip, but are quite happy to be off the road. Now I am booking it to move out of my apartment and getting on my way to New Zealand, and Bonnie going to San Francisco. No really she's going back! (We were suppose to look at colleges for her there, that's why we went... but...   well, we didn't).

Location: Spokane, Wa to Bozeman, MT

Daily Mileage: 391.5

Total Mileage: 2811.0 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

( Plus a lot of walking so...   we'll call it 3,000)

** We'll be publishing pictures shortly **

Nearly There

We spent last night in a highly comfortable king size bed in the suite at Comfort Inn, and now tonight in a house! *gasp* To be honest, we've had some pretty god sleeping arrangements on this trip, the worst one was probably sleeping in the car next to the train tracks... but wait... Bonnie slept through that! So yeah, it was all pretty great :-)

We woke up Wednesday morning (the second day of 2008!!!!) and Bonnie copied off the directions for the day: we'd be using *drum roll* public transport! Coming from Fairbanks and Bozeman this was... well... a ah, new feature. That day we used three modes of transport: Muni bus (San Fran,) Bart (underground train to Berkeley,) and the the Berkeley bus system to get to our final destination.

#1 on our list for the day was the Exploritorium... until we discovered the Palace of Fine Arts anyway. A gorgeous series of walls, columns, and other architectural feats, it was really a pleasure to wander through. We did make it inside the Exploritorium though (YAY for free wednesday!) and had a blast experimenting and exploring for a whole... two hours. Deffinately worth that, and more time if we could, but then it was on to Pixar.

After a ride on the Bart we arrived at the Pixar complex (an entire block) and were given our "strangers from the outside" nametags as registered guests. Geoffrey quickly removed our cameras (smart guy...) and then took us on the "standard tour route" which, it turns out, was backward. We saw some amazing sculptures, sketches, paintings, and renderings from the most recent film: Ratitoulee (not spelled right...) Then we got to see Geoff's office and he introduced us to one of his coworkers who had some opinions for Bonnie on art schools. The verdict? "Academy of Art is TAKING OVER!!!"

We made a quick stop at Geoffrey's and then it was off again in the car to Redding, where we spent the night at the Hilton without free wireless. The next day we drove to Reedsport, spent the night, and then spent about two hours on the coast of Oregon... before making a run for it inland. We managed to avoid all storms and stayed safe.

HOLY COW!!

So it's been a very interesting couple of days since I've last written my blog. So Thursday night we left San Francisco and ended up spending the night in Redding, California at the beautiful Hilton Inn. Well, the parking lot we spent the night in was nice anyways...


I have a lot to catch you up on, but I'll do that later... On to right now!

so we started today off at the Oregon coast in Reedsport where the weather forcast was severe winds clocked at up to 120mph and warning against any unnessary travel. So... what did we do... We jumped off the coast and trudged into Portland. You know I have to add these big cities are quite stingy about their internet, We went into Barnes and Noble and paid $3.99 for a one time internet use, in which we had just enough battery power to get directions of that city. We are now in Hermiston, OR.

We made reservations for a Budget Inn, and google mapped it. Upon arrival at just near 1am, we came to discover the hotel doesn't exist! We called 411, and asked the locals, they never heard of it. Well Hermiston is a little town of about 15,000 people, and most all of them were already asleep. So, to make a long story short, we pleaded our case at the comfort inn, discovered that they were booked for a wrestling tournament, but had one room left. "We'll take it!!" Then we discovered it was dirty, and actually wasn't available. So the wonderful receptionist p us up to a Sweet on the top floor- their best room for the lowest price they could possibly give us! (Under $80!!!). Did I forget to mention Bonnie spent hours trying to get online at our last hotel in Reedsport. We paid for wireless at the hotel, but it just wasn't strong enough and kept spitting out distasteful naked pop-ups. Don't get me wrong, we Really did enjoy the Salty Seagull (hotel), no sarcasm intended.

It's late, but I'll have to catch up with the blog after the ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZzzZzzz's ! Good night, and the Stars are Beautiful!

Finding the Bush Man

Today is January 1, 2008, and what a Fabulous day it was!

I have to tell you though, I am having a blast and I'm going to have a hard time keeping up with all the incredible things we've done! Today Veronica, Geoffrey, Bonnie and I, all visited Ripley's Believe it or not, checked out the Spy Shop (Really cool place by the way, if you come to San Fran you have to go!), ran some errands, and sought to climb the tallest building in San Francisco- the Transamerica Pyramid. And...


GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


WE FOUND THE BUSH MAN!!
this is an actual video we took today!

I have David Johnson's signature too aka The Bush Man!


Ripley's Believe it or Not:

World's Fattest man to ever be drafted- he weighed over 1000lbs when he died.

I can't say I can do this trick.
Location: San Francisco, California
Time 00:18
Daily Mileage: ?
Total Mielage: ?
Day 6

Another Bush Man Video

New Years Eve

We had wonderful waffles with raspberries and blueberries, made by Geoffrey and a special trip to the grocery store early Monday morning! Then Geoffrey showed us his juggling skills... he can do 4 and 5 balls, pins, fire, etc. It's amazing!! Though I think one of the best parts of this morning was Sleeping In!!

He can even juggle vertically.

We later drove down to Pier 39 where we we to a 4D Super Tree Factory and went on the best log ride in the world. It was pretty crazy I'll tell you that much. We also saw 4D Escape from Dino Island. For those of you who don't know 4D is a 3D movie where the chairs move with the movie and wind, water, etc. is used for the audience to further interact with the show.


We found some great Photo Spots- Interesting enough Pier 39 had "Photo Spot" recommendations all over the pier (they weren't very good as you can see).

After shopping at Pier 39 and gazing at the sea lions, we headed off towards china town on a mission to find Real Chopsticks! Speaking of which we have been doing Great! Though I must say that I caught Bonnie taking two bites using a fork for her waffles, and so I revoked her spoon privileges for the day as well!

We tried the crazy hats on at the hat shop!

New Years Eve was the BEST part of the day! Bonnie, Veronica, Geoff (brother and sister of Bonnie), and I all went on a wooden fishing boat into the San Francisco Bay where we got a personal tour of the area including Alcatraz and Angel Islands as well as a view of the city that is priceless. We parked the boad under the Bay bridge where we got a front row view of the fireworks display. I can't possibly find words to describe how incredible it was!


Location: San Francisco, California
Time: 00:19
Daily Mileage:? - Public Transportation and walking ( many city miles)
Total Mileage: ?
Day 5