Good Idea, Bad Idea?

Several nights ago during a discussion Josie and I did a little math. According to our calculations when Josie was graduating from college I was the same age as the students she teaches in FL. Twelve. I don't know if we would have been so keen on hanging out then. But at our present ages (which will not be listed here) and after only knowing each other for about 30 seconds we seemed to think it would be a good idea to hang out. In a foreign country. And hang out we have done. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 5 plus weeks.

Turns out it was a pretty good idea. Of course Josie's opinion could be different, seeing as she had to endure all my weird/bad habits. She showed me grace on the days when I wore my cranky pants. She quickly learned to stuff a granola bar in my mouth every afternoon around 2:00pm when my blood sugar began to drop. She refers to it as the "witching hour." And of course she was patient with my super weird habit of doing push-ups in random places.

We have shared all of our different bits of wisdom and life philosophies. I am up to date on politics, am intimately familiar with New Zealand bird life, and know so many stories about the Bryan family I feel like I know them all, although I have not met any of them..yet. I have shared all my New Zealand knowledge with Josie and she knows which rivers to cross and which ones not to cross :)

We climbed to the top of a volcano in Mt. Egmont National Park, saved a Canadian from sure death by dehydration in Fiordland National Park, sat on top of a moraine that was created yesterday by the glacier 100' below us in Mt. Cook National Park, woke up to kea (world's only alpine parrot) trying to eat our tent in Arthur's Pass National Park, woke up to what I thought was rain hitting our tent, but turns out it was hundreds of sandflies trying to get in our tent in Nelson Lakes National Park, watched fur seals on Farewell Spit, showed the Kiwis how to dance at the sweetest outdoor music festival, and we laughed. We have laughed so hard on so many different occasions that we had to stuff shirts in our mouth so we didn't wake our camping neighbors.

Tomorrow I head back to the States and to a life that was all flipped around during my absence. I am pretty sure some strangers came into my house packed up my underwear, my bikes, and all my other stuff and moved it to the desert. Weird. I hear the Hanna family lives in the state they call Utah. A big thank you to all the good people that helped Clay make the transition to Canyonlands. You are much appreciated.

I randomly asked Josie the other day what had been our best idea so far. I thought she might say the music festival, the jumping pillow, or when we finally did laundry after more than two weeks of wearing the same clothes. She responded, "Going on this trip. " So, good idea, bad idea? Most outstanding idea!