Baltimore and Mount Doom

A friend, Tim, arrived from Baltimore about 2 weeks ago. I was so excited to see him, especially because he was bringing gifts from home. Tim carted a box from my sister filled with fun things for me and kathy's kids. I'm pretty she sure cleaned out the local dollar store and her cabinets. We got 2 big bags of Lemon Heads, gum, a whoopie cushion, bungie cords, books, videos of Masterpiece theatre, and the bag of marshmallows in the picture below. The bag was less than half full - not even enough to make Rice Krispie treats.

Thanks for everything else Di - I ate all of the Swiss Cake Rolls in one day and didn't even feel bad about it.

Tim arrived early Monday morning - we went and got breakfast then I dropped him off to go for a hike and I went in to work. Not the best way to greet someone who came 9000 miles, but it was the best I could do. Matamata is the home of Hobbiton - he wanted to see it while I was at work, but there's nothing there except holes in the ground, and they charge $50 to walk near the holes - you can't even go in them. So, he skipped that and went for a hike that didn't cost anything.
I only had to work for 2 hours, then I picked him up, and we drove over to Papamoa - my home - and went right to a cafe/bar to watch the Superbowl. For those of you who are timezone challenged, we are 18 hours ahead of the east cost, so kickoff was Monday 12 noon. We didn't get to see commercials but we did get to see a good game.

On Wednesday, we headed about 3 hours south to the Tongaririo crossing - aka Mount Doom. It took us about 6 hours to do the hike. It was freezing and really really windy and there were orks everywhere.




Tim's on the South Island seeing alot of the sites that I got to see this summer- hopefully when he gets back at the end of the week, I'll have more pictures to show for his time here.