Well. I see him online.. Maybe he will see this post and put all this nonsense to rest.
Yup. That's exactly what happened.
I've been in Middle Earth these last few weeks.
Paid a visit to Mordor (Tongariro National Park) and froze my FN behind off. Got soaked at Rivendell (near Wellington), the Shire (IN downtown Wellington!) and Misty Mountains (Franz Josef Glacier) as well. And watched a couple of serious nutcases bungee jump off a suspension bridge into the River Anduin (near Queenstown). Never made it to Rohan or the Pelennor Fields since they are WWWAAAYYY in the middle of nowhere and I only had two weeks.
I never crashed the car, though my wife sure thought I would. Right hand drive and all that. And WAY too many "roundabouts" in Auckland. And of course transoceanic flights almost always arrive first thing in the morning, just in time for morning rush hour.
FYI, Kiwis like to drive Fords, Toyotas, and especially Chryslers (mainly Jeep, but Dodge as well). But I didn't see a single GM vehicle anywhere....
Does GM not make right hand drive vehicles or something stupid like that?
Fire news was all over the NZ press while I was there, and it was really obvious they were no less than 300 miles from home, and the big ones were 500 miles. But everyone I ran into there there asked about it. Our air quality isn't so great now, but there is no risk of flames.
I'll be scarce the next few weeks as well as I'm in the pit for a local production of Meredith Wilson's Music Man opening 10 Nov. As always, the production has a few dozen kids in it, so rehearsals go lllllllooooonnnnnnnggggggg.