Homeward Bound

We needed to be on the road to Christchurch by 11:30 a.m. to get to the airport in time. After breakfast. we stopped in town to shop for some gifts for back home – and picked up a few things for ourselves as well – and then we were on our way.

The 2.5 hour drive to Christchurch was uneventful. Well, almost. There was one last magical little moment to end our vacation.

A few days before, when we were still on the West coast, we had stopped for dinner at the picturesque little restaurant, the Bay House, outside of Westport. I had ordered a glass of Riesling. They had been out of the kind I ordered so they had upgraded me to another kind, from the Greystone Vineyard. It was delightful – probably the best wine I had ever tasted (and most who know me, know that I am not an avid wine drinker). We had kept saying that we would look up the vineyard to find it, but we had kept forgetting and we passed through wine country already and never saw it.

About 30 minutes North of Christchurch I suddenly remembered that I forget to look up the vineyard – and I despaired to Dave that sadly it was too late. Then literally, a minute later, there was the sign to the Greystone Winery. It was a complete and wonderful coincidence – especially for it to be so far out of wine country and a tiny little place right on the road toward the airport. If I hadn’t just mentioned it, we would likely have not even noticed the sign.

So we pulled in and I found my wine. We bought a bottle (only enough room for one to take home) and stood there and lamented that we couldn't purchase and transport more. Just another reason to return to New Zealand I suppose.

Happy to have found a bottle of the Greystone wine!

From that point on, we were in travel mode. We arrived at the airport with no problem, plenty of time. We had a really nice airport lunch of Thai noodles and a last bottle of my favorite New Zealand cider. And we arrived at the gate for our short flight to Auckland with plenty of time to spare.

The first flight was short and sweet, as was the transfer to our long flight across the ocean. The 12 hours were a lot easier this time. We had dinner, watched two movies and then fell sound asleep – despite some pretty bad turbulence out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

We were dazed, exhausted and confused in the San Francisco airport, but again (knock on wood) everything went smoothly. We’re now on our flight across the U.S. back to D.C. Dave is looking down on our beloved Rocky Mountains and has already pointed out some of our favorite places – Crested Butte, Aspen, Vail – and he thinks he may have even seen our favorite mountain, Sneffles.  The good news is that we will be returning to all of those places in just a few short months. It’s always good to make sure your next vacation is planned before your current one is over.

(Dave just identified Leadville and our first 14er, Mt. Elbert. Nothing like seeing our favorite places in Colorado from up high. We’ll be back soon!)

So we arrive home at 9 p.m. Monday night. But we left New Zealand 24 hours ago at 4:30 p.m. Monday night. My head is confused. Somehow we’ll have to figure out how to tackle being back at work tomorrow. It’ll take awhile to recover and adjust back to life, that is for certain.

I’m off to nap. But I’ll be back with some final thoughts in the next few days to wrap up our amazing New Zealand adventure.