Full-Mooning: Adios, Patagonia... Hello, Northern Kentucky???

So much to catch you up on, loyal followers! Especially those of you whom we didn't get to see during our brief touchdown in Massachusetts.

After Dave's discharge from the hospital in Argentina, we decided to head home a few days early to allow a little extra time for some medical consultations back in the US before heading off for New Zealand. Plus, we weren't going to be doing any more trekking, given that Dave's spleen was apparently still larger than the average spleen. And, importantly, we were fully satisfied with our adventures in Patagonia, and happy to take advantage of a few extra days at home to catch up with friends, family, pets, and all those little people we love.

Before leaving El Calafate in Argentina, we took a brief day trip to the town's main attraction, the Perito Moreno glacier -- a really impressive piece of ice they have there. But somehow, it seems a little less satisfying when you can pretty much drive right up to it and park. So, 'perito moreno' is now a verb for us, to be used any time you're going to do a drive-by of something ridiculously beautiful. (For instance, this conversation from earlier today: 'Amy, are you okay with us bypassing Abel Tasman National Park?'... 'Sure, we were just going to 'perito moreno' it anyway.').

So, after our glacial fly-by, we bused back to Punta Arenas for one last night in Chile. Nearly missed our first flight of the long journey back to Boston early the next morning (Note to self: Next time, set alarms before, rather than after, those fine bottles of Chilean red... to make sure the alarm is set for 5:30am, not 5:30pm). Fortunately, arriving at the airport 15 minutes before our flight departed was good enough this once. An 8-hour layover in Santiago, a 10-hour flight back to Atlanta (complete with drunk passengers, violent passengers, and totally crazy passengers), a short connection back to Boston, and we were home.

Our week at home was great -- so wonderful to catch up with the people we love and to get to take some more expensive pictures of Dave's impressively large spleen. (Please note: pictures of Dave's spleen have been removed from this website by NZ authorities as inappropriate adult content). By the way, Dave's doctor at the Mt. Auburn Hospital Travel Clinic totally rocks. Everybody should have their own tropical infectious disease specialist. You never know when that's going to come in handy.

More importantly, we spent lots of quality time with our family -- especially Jackson and Trixie, who are spending their winter in snowy Paxton; we played lots with our nephews and niece; we caught up with the Helmet Bumpers for dinner; and saw Mr. and Mrs. Fong one last time before they become Mama and Papa Fong. And before we knew it, on Sunday morning, we were off to New Zealand... or so we thought.

A brief delay at Logan Airport for plane de-icing turned into a slightly longer delay when another plane double-parked in front of us on the taxi runway. Which meant there was no way we were making our 30-minute connection in Cincinnati for LAX. The worse news was that there were no other flights to LAX that would get us there in time for our international flight to Australia... and no more of those flights until the next night. So we ended up spending 23.5 hours in Cincinnati. And worse than that, we were going to get charged $600 for missing the international flight and rebooking for the next night. Oh, and did we mention that our new itinerary had a bonus 10-hour layover in Brisbane, Australia? It turned a very long trip (scheduled for 32 hours) into an extremely long trip (68 hours!). And, for the record, Cincinnati airport isn't even in Cincinnati... it's not even in Ohio! It's in Northern Kentucky... which is lovely this time of year, in case any of you were looking for a vacation spot.

Not a great start to the trip... But on to the bright side! We got to watch the Oscar's! We got upgraded at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Northern Kentucky when we told them it was our honeymoon! (we watched the Oscar's from our jacuzzi!). And, in what was definitely the coolest layover ever, we cuddled Koala bears and made friends with some Kangaroos at a nearby reserve during our 10 hours in Brisbane.