Over the last month I have been amassing my camping gear, plowing through guide books, sending out emails to generous friends and friends of friends down under, booking bus tickets and backcountry hut passes, and now the time has finally come: New Zealand ho, my friends. A friend, a tent, a backpack, a car, the mountains and farms of Middle Earth, and me.
I'm going to do my best to keep this blog periodically updated with photos, stories, and the status of my (decreasing) personal hygiene and (correspondingly increasing) rugged awesomeness. For now I can tell you that current plans include a mixture of hiking and fruit-picking, a good deal of sleeping outdoors, and hopefully a swift and meteoric rise in my physical fitness. High on my to-do list: sky dive, see a whale, and stalk the film crew of The Hobbit. Grander goals? If pressed, I might admit the following: I want to get some experience with agriculture, write about food, practice free-spiritedness, practice spiritedness, and do at least one thing that's so beautiful to me that it doesn't need a reason for anyone else.
Thanks to you all for your continued interest and enthusiasm. I love having people to listen to my stories.
P.S. If you got the allusion in the title of this post, ten points. You're officially as nerdy as I am. For the rest of you more well-adjusted readers: remember what Bilbo used to say. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
