A Hard Day...

Greymouth, New Zealand

May 11, 2007
S 42°28.066

E 171°11.145

Okay, so everyday isn’t picture perfect, a dream, with lovely sites and landscape, some days are dark, gray and only full of rain. That was today. The rain was coming down so hard, sideways at times, that it wasn’t even worth going out to explore. Luckily, Greymouth doesn’t have a lot of spectacular sites to see, and we were only using it as a stopping point on our drive down the West Coast of the South Island, one of the most spectacular drives in the world.

The rain started last night, let up briefly a few times throughout the day; each time we thought it was over it resumed fiercer with more punch than the previous shower. I hate the rain and I really hate being trapped inside all day. We did have Internet access, allowing us to book some tickets and look up a few things we needed to research.

I mentioned before that I am a little obsessive compulsive, but thinking about it a little more I think I’m obsessed with being in control… I think the technical term is control freak. I have to be in control of every situation and when something, like weather, is out of my control it makes me a little crazy.

I took care of a few things on the computer, started a new book ("The Alchemist"), and caught up on my CNN. However, after hearing the same news about Tony Blair resigning, Paris Hilton crying about her impending jail time, and, of course, the latest failures of the war in Iraq for the sixth time I started to melt-down.

I missed Shelby. I missed my Mom, feeling badly that I wouldn’t be able to see her on Mother’s Day. I guess being locked up inside made me a little homesick. The past few weeks have been so perfect I almost forgot we were traveling for an extended period of time. After visiting San Francisco and then we arrived in New Zealand with Shelby and Dustin I got out of "travel mode."

I realized today was one of those "hard days" Marc and I talked about as we prepared for our trip; traveling for a year isn’t always fun. Today reminded we’re traveling for awhile, although we are having a great time and really living a dream; I still miss friends and family at home and that hit hard!

Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny and bring more adventures as we continue our road trip down the West Coast.