Here’s the view from the first evening of my drive down from San Francisco to San Diego. I think this was right around Carmel, below Monterey:
California pix are over here!
Roth Rules!
Just for name recognition, I’d head to this Dieter Roth exhibition, but it’s at the MoMA in Queens, and I’ll need to get my passport renewed before I can travel that far.
In the MausHaus
I just landed in Orlando for the Parenteral Drug Association‘s annual meeting. It was my seventh flight this year. Fortunately, I don’t have any air-travel till June, when I head out to the BIO show. For some reason (possibly the coffee I had before the flight), I was pretty wired into the turbulence we had on takeoff and initial ascent.
But I mellowed out after a while, read most of Radiance, by Carter Scholz, and listened to the Pod for a little while. Boy, with Radiance, 100 Suns, and Intelligence Wars, you’d think I’ve started to pick up on a trend.
Correction
Turns out the ferry was to Picton, through the Marlborough Sound, which was the eeriest experience I’ve ever had. More to come.
We drove from there to Nelson. Yesterday, I went for a three-hour hike in the Abel Tasman National Park, followed by a visit to The Grumpy Mole, where one of the other members of the tour lived up to his Australian stereotype by drinking 15 beers before shifting over to screwdrivers for the rest of the evening. Said evening, note, comprised less than 4 hours. One of the other Australians was surprised by my behavior that evening. “I thought you’d be more… aggressive,” he said. I think, based on the way I’ve portrayed myself to some people, that he was expecting a Begbie-esque experience last night. Well, there’s still time in Queenstown…
Today was a drive down to Kaikoura (where I am now), to be followed by an evening drive to our destination, Christchurch. Took some wonderful pix yesterday during the hike, and some funny ones during the evening out. But the camera got doused in the sink this morning, and I’m hoping it’s just the battery that’s messed up. I’ll find out when we check in tonight. Grr.
(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)
The Poseidon Adventure
Evidently, we’re soon to get on a ferry in the Windiest Place On Earth (Cook Strait), in order to get from Wellington down to Nelson. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten those oxen of the sun last night!
(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)
Etc.
In other news, I’m having a nice, relaxing time here. Been using SPF 30 sunscreen, so I’ve been okay thus far. Except that I seem to have sunburned the top of my head, which is pretty irritating (in more ways than one). Can’t really douse one’s hair with sunscreen, so it looks like I’m going to have to pick up a baseball cap sometime.
Hasta.