New Zealand Odyssey: Week 43, My Last NZ Post

Jen coerced me into doing the Naseby 6 hour last weekend, and we had a ball. Thanks honey!

It’s a privilege to live in a foreign place for a long stretch. The place becomes a part of you and you of it. But this also makes it hard to leave. Dunedin is a part of me now, and that part will be torn when I leave tomorrow.

We’ve been blessed here in many ways. The kids have loved the schools and have made good friends, Jen has enjoyed more free time and being anonymous, and I have had a productive year of work, while still getting outside a lot. As a family, we were blessed with lots of experiences through our travels, visits from the grandmas, and a close friendship with our Ohio neighbors, Yo, Kate, Kellie, and Anna Chin. It’s been a great year. I can do nothing other than count myself a lucky man.

There’s still more I’d like to do here. We never made it to Mt. Cooke, didn’t surf the North Island beaches or mountain bike Rotorua, and I didn’t get that solo backpack in.

Actually, the main thing I’m not going to be able to do that I wish I could is live in Dunedin long term. Yes, I’d like to, not more than Missoula, but if I could clone myself, the other me would live in Dunedin, complain about the weather, let his hair grow, and surf his ass off all year long.

Nonetheless, I’m ready to go back to my life in Montana: big country, big rivers, dry air, real heat, real cold and snow, Missoula, my job at UM, my family and friends, the list goes on. Being away makes you realize what you left behind. As good as we have it here, our lives back home are even better.

A big thanks to all of the followers of this blog. Let's not be strangers.