Nearly Time To Go

Since it’s nearly time to go and since I haven't updated this in over a month I thought I'd put something down about the last month.

It’s been an absolute mental month. Between wrapping up Jeecom Europe, moving out of the apartment in Smithfield with 6 years worth of crap, getting all the final travel related things done and saying goodbye to everyone its been exhausting. It got pretty stressful which is fine as it’s going to make the trip all the sweeter by the time we get going (in 12 days).

We've booked the American leg of the trip with the help of Robbie (thanks), who was just back from the west coast. We're staying in LA for the first night then hiring a car and going to Yosemite National Park camping with the bears for two nights, San Francisco for one before the long drive back to LAX for our flight to NZ on the fourth evening. It's going to be over 1500 mile by car, which is worrying me. Have we bitten off more than we can chew? I'll let you know.

Over the last couple of weeks we've had some great nights out saying good-bye to the various groups of friends. It great craic but it really takes it out of you (getting old). Everyone asks are we excited but I'm not sure if its really sunk in yet. Someone said it will after a fortnight when you'd normaly expect to be going home. There has been the odd lump in my throat which I didn't think I'd experience and I'm afraid to tell Sal about because I'm supposed to be the strong one!

Thanks to those who gave us advice and things for the trip, surprisingly useful and thoughtful.

For the next week I'm helping out around the folks house, seeing a bit of them, going to see the lads from home, see a dentist and get the final final things I need like an old fashioned toothbrush.