The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

It’s strange that we are now finally only 1 week out before embarking on our RTW adventure. We had a busy week getting some final things out of the way.

Last weekened we spent 2 days at the beach house with Jim’s parents and our nephews Andy & Baron. We all had a great time but man, what I wouldn’t give for 1/10th of those kids energy!

Tuesday we took a beautiful drive a couple of hours up the coast to Manzanita to visit our friends Kelly, Rick, and their family. They are some of our oldest friends but they live in California so we dont’ get to see them as much as we would like. We had a good afternoon playing on the beach with them and catching up on news. They’ll be in New Zealand as well, but unfortunately not until next spring so we’ll be long gone by then.

We got the boat in to the dealer to get winterized for storage and picked up my sleeping bag. Jim had gotten me a great bag for my birthday last year with a special zipper so I can stick my feet/toes out. (slight claustrophobia issues:)However, being a hip bag, the side zipper didn’t go down as far as I wanted. So,we got the zipper lengthened & it now extends the length of the bag. It was no big deal for weekend camping here but since we’ll basically be sleeping in those bags for 5-6 months in Africa I wanted to make sure it was as comfortable as possible!

I may have mentioned that my former boss is going to be in Cairo in Feb. so she’ll be bringing our sleeping bags/ pads with her and leave them at our Cairo offices so we can pick them up when we arrive later in the spring. Should work out great & now we won’t have to pay shipping or worry about them being lost. I dropped off the bag at work… It was great to see everyone but I don’t feel as if I belong there anymore.

We’re down to just getting any toilitries we need for the trip packed up and we’re pretty much set. We weren’t able to see quite everyone we’d hoped to see before we go but everyone else has busy schedules as well. Hopefully, we’ll get lots of encouraging emails and comments from friends and family as we go.

We had a minor problem with our goat Butler this week. When they were being brought in from the pasture Bug stepped on his leg and he had to have a week of stall rest and some anti-inflammatory shots. Poor guy is pretty sore but it looks like he’ll be fine, thank goodness, because a big vet bill right before we left was NOT in the plans!

In an odd twist of fate, Barb, Bug’s vet, is going to be flying into Sydney the same day we arrive!! She is teaching classes for 4 days but then has 4 days on her own so we’re hoping to catch up with her for dinner. We haven’t seen much of her the last couple of years and how strange that Australia will be the next place we might see her!

We’re back at the beach now but have to get back up to Portland tomorrow for a friends sons’ birthday party. We’re spending the night and getting the boat in storage on Monday, dropping the truck at some friends, etc. and then back to the beach for a few days for our last week here at home. It hasn’t fully clicked in yet that this is all really happening but it sure will soon!!!

Weather in Fiji is 83 and sunny this week so should be perfect when we arrive in about 10 days. We’re really looking forward to a “vacation” before we start our long trip. New Zealand will probably be a bit crisp but hopefully it won’t rain the whole time so we can get in a lot of fishing and hiking.

Next up, what we’re packing and why…………. stay tuned.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.