NZ Day 3

I pretty much didn't sleep at all in Rotorua, mostly thanks to the fierce winds that shook the van and the rain pounding at the windows. Casey, on the other hand didn't sleep, mostly thanks to his stomach ache. We got nice hot showers the night before though, so that was keeping us motivated. Casey couldn't manage anything for breakfast besides half an apple. Knowing Casey, this was not a good sign, but he insisted we do some low-key sightseeing while we were in town and try to make the best of it. One major highlight here is that we found a nice outdoor store that was having a sale; and after getting soaked the night before on the walk back to the car, we decided to pop in and look at jackets. Casey found a nice jacket in black that the sales person offed to give us 20% off, score! Then I found a small in the men's clearance rack, and ended up scoring a nice mountain hardware jacket for about 25% of the original price, double score! This ended up being the best part of the day :-(

Being that the wind was still super fierce and the rain was intermittent, we opted out of the geysers, which is fine, since geysers are kind of all the same, right? Oh well.

We decided to hit the bricks since the weather was crummy and Rotorua wasn't delivering on the sights and events. We decided it was better to use up all the bad weather time driving for Wellington, so we could at least get into town and do something fungi the evening. Bonus: the windshield wipers make a horrendous squeegy noise every time they drag across the window, which is super fun in a down pour.

Casey get progressively worse as the day drags along, and I'm starting to think he's caught that horrible stomach virus I had about 2 weeks ago (think of wanting to be in the fetal position and nausea, but riding in a van with broken wipers and having to sit up and/or sleep against the window). I feel so bad for him, but there's nothing to really ease the discomfort, even with the virtual medicine cabinet I packed. Thankfully, we made it just outside Wellington early in the afternoon, but now instead of plans to visit the city, we will be holing up so Casey can sleep and try to come out on the other side of this virus alive.

I got the bed set up and locked in Mr. Sickey, while checked into the motor lodge and jumped on the Internet to see if any of our military paperwork for our move was being processed in our absence (not so much). I also tried doing a bit of planning for the next day. New awesomeness: the weather bomb had cancelled many of the ferries to the south island, so the next possible crossing was actually not tomorrow, but the morning after at 0600. I went ahead and made the booking, seeing as it was our first possible chance to try to get to the south island with any sort of time left to enjoy it. For those of you following along, this is what is known as being in Shambletown. After getting that awesomeness squared away, I checked in on Mr. Sickey, who was so passed out that's couldn't wake him, which meant I also couldn't get any of our food or dishes. So I decided to leave him sleeping and get some stuff at the grocery store nearby. I felt like I was driving around with a big secret in the back of the car and I was all worried about turning too hard or going over bumps! At the store I tried to get things that were sick-friendly like soup and pasta, and wine (for the caretaker, it was a long day of driving and planning alone). Thankfully, I made it back to our parking space with Sickey in one piece and I managed to get him to roll to the other side of the van, so I could get out some pots and pans. The lodge had a communal kitchen, and I was glad to make some dinner and have a glass of wine while Sickey slept, it was relaxing after a crappy day. It was still raining, so I waited until everything was done before I attempted to get Sickey to eat something. I had set out a little table with light pasta and bread, with the option of soup if none of that went down. Casey managed about half a dinner roll's size of bread all while looking like complete death (sorry, Sickey, I love you, but it's true). There was a nice German couple making dinner next to us, and I think they were utterly confused as to why Sickey appeared to disdain everything I cooked, not really speak, and leave about 5 minutes into the non-meal. Nothing was going down so Sickey decided to go back to bed. :-( I went ahead and finished eating and watching some silly TV show, only to be surprised to see Sickey again a few minutes later, less all of the bread and medicine he had managed to force down. This must be really bad since the last time Sickey lost his dinner was on our first date due to food poisoning. Poor kid just went back to bed, and I decided to just make my evening relaxing by watching silly TV, drinking my wine, and reading, while watching over Sickey. Not exactly the best day, but at least we made it to Wellington. Here's to hoping for a little rest and a more successful day in Wellington on the morrow.