Akaroa, New Zealand
March 3, 2016
Billie Holiday was coming through on the busted radio
and I was holding canned tuna, crackers and a smile.
The amigos! On the road! Full of fish but hungry in the eyes.
We were going to see it all. Put our feet and hands on it.
Thirty days to swim and kick and fly our way across
the two islands that make up a country,
New Zealand.
I took a drive from Denver to Red Rock Campground (Las Vegas) to run Art Direction on a Google shoot.
Hours behind a steering wheel are meditative by my standards. Unplug and let your idle thoughts provide the soundtrack to a slideshow of western America. Weaving through mountains, canyons, tunnels and rivers the visual sensations wash over you like a hit Netflix series, episode after episode, town after town. Your path is clear, A to B, and you're lost only in mindlessness as the mile markers rip by.
Note: The mesas in Moab are snowy as all get out in February. Dead Horse Point made for a good halfway point but a terrible campsite. Driving in the dark, I accidently began a descent into Longs Canyon at 11:30pm which was a challenging 4x4 road when I attempted it last fall under sunny conditions and with a second Jeep as back up. I was stuck on a steep hairpin turn, in the snow, in the dark, alone. It took some serious shimmying, a lot of digging and about 30 minutes to climb back out.
I promptly applied water and heat to some dehydrated lasagna and nodded off in my driver seat. The trip improved thereafter.
The three day tourney out in Northern Colorado is held on Red Feather Lakes. The ratio of men to women is negligible, there are no women here. Conditions over the past few years have ranged from multiple feet of snowfall (and extensive shoveling) to sunny bluebird skies. This year we lucked out with 30mph winds and single digit temps. We also lost all five of our games.
The 11th annual can't come soon enough.
