2018 Beyond the Big Left Turn wrap up

What a year it's been! This time last year, we were knee deep in wrapping up the sale of the boat, and finalizing the transfer of the store to new ownership.

The rig was being readied for it's first inaugural road trip on our drive up Highway 1 in Baja- one that neither one of us have fond memories of.  We were RV rookies and we could feel it.

There were fun visits with family and friends on our way to Washington state

A great visit and local touring with John and Linda in Oregon

Getting over Mt Shasta just before the snow started

The planning of the past six months for the trip ahead was finally coming to fruition.

 Toms bag and items for inside

The bags were packed, the tickets in hand, and the three of us began a wondfulland crazy, at times, trip of a lifetime.

Gordon, Lefty Tom and Jeanne at the airport 

With the purpose of the trip to take Mom's ashes to her 'happy spot' in New Zealand, we enjoyed exploring the North and south islands as my folks had several years before.

Over mountains, around fjords, across rivers, into forests, we sought out all sorts of wonderfully beautiful places.

Along the way we had adventures in the big adventure, like our 4 day cruise to Doubtful sound.

 Lobsters for breakfast, lunch and dinner - Tom's happy meal!

Too quickly we had to move on and continued our South Island explorations.

At the very southern end of New Zealand

There are just too many photographs of incredible places. I'd love to be able to share them all, but it's a daunting task just to cull these few!

 Little blue Penguins at night

The Mooraki boulders

A highland cow - in New Zealand in case I didn't find one in Scotland!

This trip was NOT up Ship's creek!

 Leaving South Island

Arriving into Wellington after crossing Cook Straight on the ferry allowed us a visit with former La Paz Boater buddies, Sarah and Michael.

We also took a couple of days to explore the Wellington areas and beyond.

While Tom was really the only one interested in the birds, little by little, Gordie and I joined his band wagon.  I'm not sure exactly when this happened, but most likely when he was approaching a 'landmark' number like 400 or 500.

Soon, we were seeking out the wildlife refuges and preserves rather than the cities.  We did catch up with my brothers family in Taupo.

They were taking a week to tour before joining everyone in Whanananki for Mom's celebration picnic.

Fishing at the bach before guest arrived

Glenda being Glenda and we love her for it!

Family and friends honor Mom

The celebration for Mom was exactly what she would have done and organized.  One of the NZ family mentioned her 'caramel cake' - so I quickly made one!  It was fitting, and over too soon.  What a place the bach is - we all know why this was her happy place!

With the date approaching for us to move on, we continued to the far north tip, and one more visit with the NZ family.

 Almost back to Aukland, Tom points out our location in Kaipora.

Aukland from the Sky Tower

Glenda welcomes the latest addition.

Another Lefty, goofy photo

It was over too soon, but new countries and adventures awaited us in Australia.

Gordie checking out the building codes in Melbourne

Melbourne, a city that was gnarly and gritty, colorful in its own way.

 Uluru, a hard to describe place

We then flew off to Alice springs, picked up the RV and headed to my bucket list spot - Uluru.  This place is hard to describe.  It's spiritual, beautiful, puzzling, quiet and loud at the same time.  Go see it for yourself! We had to move on even though it was calling us to slow down and spend more time.

 Sydney harbor

Bondi Beach

The Harbor Bridge

Back to Alice Springs to fly to Sydney.  A vibrant, sparkly city, compared to Melbourne.  Three days of high speed exploring was quickly over, and we flew to Caines.

 A train trip up the mountain

 A birding trip on the Daintree early one rainy morning.

Stone cairns, hundreds of them.

A quick, needed nap

 Michaelmas Cay, Great Barrier reef, a birders nirvana!

Snorkeling on the reef.

The boat ride back

The rainforest, the great barrier reef, birding trips, all wonderful, and all over too fast!

More checks off of the bucket list, for sure!

Darwin was our next stop, with Kakadu National park our destination for 10 days.

By this time, we'd all decided that we preferred the national parks, and refuges over the larger cities.  At least we preferred a bit slower transition from camping to downtown suburbia!

We all felt sad leaving Darwin and Kakadu, our last RV for a while - well, not so sad, but the next stop to Perth, was our last Australia destination.

 

Cit of Perth, Australia

It was hard to get excited about new places as they were all cool places.  However, I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone about Africa and our 21 days in Kruger national park!

Everyday brought new and unusual sights.  As the days went by, we became selective in our shots, waiting until we were close to the animals.

We never did find the leopard, so we'll need to figure out how to get back there!

 Victoria and Albert Harbor, Cape town

View from Table Mountain

Simon's Town

Cape town was fun.  A very pretty city with it's vibrancy a slow hum rather than a loud clanging!

We then headed off to Doha to connect with more cruising friends, Livia and Carol for very quick 30 hour visit!  Our next destination - Scotland.

Our first castle

researching the family roots in Alness

An invitation to photograph Highland games from the field....

Another RV and a map of the North Coast - our next 3 week destination. More exploring and wonderful, spectacular scenery, not to mention a few castles!

My next trip to Scotland will be in a smaller car, one that can explore the back roads easier!

At last the rv portion of the trip was done and we were car traveling in England and Wales.  Too soon it was over and we were back in Puyallup in Eagles Nest planning the next portion of the year.

After a few short days, we were heading to the San Juan Islands for some quality boating time with Scott and Monica and and extra visit from Rod and Jane - all boater friends from La Paz!

The summer was starting to cool off and we had to get on the road.  State parks and National parks were waiting..

 Oregon, Crater Lake, Idaho, Montana, Yellowstone, Wyoming, Grand Teton and Jackson Hole, Deadwood, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona all got visits from us this summer and fall.

 Time with Sister Sue and her family at the Lakeview roundup and destruction derby!

 Exploring the natural hot pools at Hart Mountain

A couple of days of delay while we try to fix and get our slider fixed.  All the parts have been repaired  - it will be our first RV project of 2019 to put it all back together!

Living with the slider inside for 2 weeks.

More Parks, more sights...

 A few more repairs, just more adventure right?

 Tucumcari on Rt 66, a fun town for photography, and one that I predict will revive itself again.

The ballon festival - an unplanned bucket list stop for me!
What a day!













soon we were in Arizona - our spot for the winter

 Our space W8 at Desert Trails RV Park.

One of the only sites that has big trees!

 But not for long, as our flight to Costa Rica for three weeks of birding quickly approached.

And those 21 days went way to fast.  I really like Costa Rica and it's people.

So back in Arizona, we attempt to nest a bit.  The truck needed repair, which required a rental car - so road trip to Texas, the closest place to get the most birds.

It seems we go on one trip to only plan the next.  This Texas trip, soon led to airplane flights to Nassau to visit the family for a week of pool play and fun.

Writing this 'wrap up 2018' blog has been difficult. It's been an amazing year. I am concerned that 2019 has a tough act to follow!  We visited 10 different countries, flew 22 different flights of over 45,000 air miles, drove over 28,000 miles on both the left and right side of the road, navigated to unmarked homes and roads without any issues, and took over 80,000 images - just mine alone! Tom had hoped to find 1000 birds during this year.  Happily, he's ending the "Little Big Year" with 1302 birds, and is listed as the 76th birder in the world.

Every year, on New Years Eve I've gone back in my memory to look at the things that I've accomplished during the previous year.  Not one to set 'resolutions' I prefer to try to do things better the next.   What can I do to make myself a better person?

Traveling around the world has been an exciting time.  Learning about new cultures, people,  towns and cities, and various methods of transportation has been rewarding.  Before we left, friends gave us a 'scratch off the places you've been' map of the world.  We've scratched off the places we have visited together.  Thinking that we'd have this colorful map to look at after the scratching had been done, it was quite disappointing to see how much of the original color was left on the map!  Guess we're just going to have to do something about that and find a way to scratch more places!

Thanks for following along on our adventures this year.