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Travel

Thus Far...

December 21, 2014

I've been living in New Zealand for 3 months now, and it's been amazing! For the first month, my friend Chris and I traveled all around the North and South Islands - discovering for ourselves what makes this place so special. I've found that keeping up with a blog on the road - camping without Internet or power - can make it difficult to keep pace with all that we've been doing. So I've decided to create a series of future posts outlining some of the amazing places we've already seen, starting them with the title, "Thus Far..." I want these to be short, media driven, educational posts that allows you to see, hear, and be a part of my journey. The goal of course is to keep this place clean and up-to-date going forward, with a few past adventures sprinkled in along the way.

The view behind our apartment In Queenstown.

Dani & Chris getting ready for Christmas at our apartment.

We started all of this in Christchurch, on the east coast of the South Island. There we met some really great friends. We moved south around Queenstown, up the west coast through Haust, upward toward the most northern part of the South Island to French Pass, and over to Nelson. After two weeks alone we could have stopped and been satisfied with all the beautiful sights we'd seen; but, we regrouped again in Christchurch.

We decided to head north to Aukland, to find our own form of transportation. We wanted more of New Zealand, and the freedom of having our own vehicle, made sense. What follows throughout my blog and my website will hopefully catch you up with where I've been and what's going on along my journey.

Thanks for following along and welcome to my blog!

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Fiji Time

September 13, 2014

We flew Fiji Air from Los Angeles and decided to do a stop over for a day. They, like L.A., had been in a drought for nearly 4 months when we arrived. We landed around 5:30AM and would begin our island hopping at 7AM.

We met some new friends as we took the bus from our hostile to the harbor. Some people do a couple of days at each island as they make their way up the island chain. We decided to disembarked at Octopus Resort, on Waya Island, taking a water taxi to the beach. We were greeted by a small guitar band and lead to our free island fruit smoothie in the resorts open air bar and restaurant.

We spent a good portion of the time snorkeling and watching fish swim in and out of the coral reef just off shore. After snorkeling for a good bit we shared a nice lunch with a couple from Auckland, New Zealand. We shared a few stories of adventure seeking and where we were headed to next. After eating we did some lounging in hammocks by the beach. Needless to say we had a great time on our day long vacation in Fiji. Now it was time for us to be on our way to New Zealand.

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SpaceX, the (New) Final Frontier

September 11, 2014

Falcon 9 Rocket & Dragon Capsule - Photo Credit SpaceX

We got to see what the future of space travel looks like when our friend Drew Hess took us on a private tour of the SpaceX hanger in L.A. Staying in L.A. at our friend Drew's place was a precursor to the rest of our journey. Traveling is something I've always enjoyed, especially when getting to experience new places, people, and things. Drew is one of those people I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and was the first of many people I'd meet along my way. Interestingly enough, I didn't actually meet Drew until the morning after my first night at his place.

You see, Drew is an engineer for SpaceX. If you haven't heard of SpaceX, you may have heard of another brilliant company, Tesla Motors - both run by Elon Musk. SpaceX is an amazing company, leading the way in space exploration. Many late nights have been spent trying to achieve the high goal of creating rockets that can land themselves and be reused over and over again.

A large airplane hanger right outside L.A. where SpaceX is headquartered. — A large airplane hanger right outside L.A. where SpaceX is headquartered.

This simple enough idea has the ability to save millions, possibly billions, of dollars in cost building new rockets every time someone wants to get to space. They're currently getting certified by the U.S. Air Force and will hopefully open the door for additional military contracts and funding.

Crs 4 Dragon Orbit 2 - Photo Credit SpaceX

Drew took us on a tour of the facilities giving us a brief history of SpaceX. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and getting to see the real thing was like going to Disney World! Needless to say I had an amazing time hearing about the things SpaceX has done and is trying to accomplish.

Let the new space age begin!

Chris & I outside SpaceX after our tour with Drew.

Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.

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The Adventure Begins...

September 10, 2014

I've officially begun my journey to New Zealand. Flying out of Augusta, GA early in the morning yesterday at 7AM local time. It was quite the flight, ridding next to the propeller on our small prop plane was like flying in a massage chair. And I even managed to get a nice look at the Savannah River as we passed over, in the haze of sun rise.

It was a simple enough beginning for the first part of my travels as I landed in Los Angeles, my first time ever. My friend Chris picked me up from the airport and off we went. I'll outline how I decided to do this crazy trip later; but this is where I am now. Arriving in LA was a little underwhelming. LA, and California in general, have been suffering a major drought. Drought, that has left the land scorched and dry.

Even still the land is vibrate in other ways. The neighborhoods of Hermosa Beach I've been able to move through are alive with people. As the ocean breeze cools the air, the warm dry 82 degree heat is quite nice, especially when contrasted with the South's dripping humidity.

The first chore when arriving was a quick workout to prepare for our true adventure. Being physically fit for our journey is going to be especially important. After finishing our workout we headed to the beach, only blocks away, for a quick swim in the Pacific's refreshing water. We made time to grab a healthy lunch at a local eatery, Paradise Bowls. I've never enjoyed a bowl of fruit as much as I did here! Frozen acai berry covered with fruit and honey!

We spent the day planning and checking off our gear list, making sure we hadn't forgotten anything. I experienced for the first time watching the sun set into the Pacific atop my new friend Drew's apartment. Drew is a friend of Chris' he met on another trip - more on Drew later. The town of Hermosa Beach is compact and very community oriented. It has great locally owned shops and restaurants, all within walking distance of our location. I've only here a day and a half and would definitely want to come back for longer. California has started to call me home.

Next stop, Fiji.

On top of Drew's apartment just as the sun set into the Pacific

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Blog

Thus Far...

Fiji Time

SpaceX, the (New) Final Frontier

The Adventure Begins...