I wanted to sleep longer than I did, but my brain woke up, so no joy there. 🙃
Spent a good chunk of the morning catching up on journal entries–lots of short ones.
For whatever reason, my reception was atrocious this morning, even though I was in the same place I always park. 🤷
Headed down to Planet Fitness to get my gym membership put on hold. Unfortunately, they are only willing to put it on hold for 2 months. The lady behind the counter said that I could check back in and see if they’d extend it. Otherwise, I’d have to cancel and then restart when I got back.
Seems like a really odd rule to have, especially since it’s a month-to-month membership. How on Earth does it make logical sense to force somebody to cancel when you can just increase the pause time? Wouldn’t people be much more likely to come back when it is paused than if they cancel the membership altogether?
Weird. 😶
So it’s on hold for 2 months, and if they won’t let me extend the hold, then it’ll get canceled in January. 🙃
Headed over to a nearby bank to deposit the last of my cash, so that there won’t be any in my van while I’m gone.
In preparation for potential challenges in New Zealand, I arranged for a rental car as soon as I get there, for four days. I can cancel anytime, and the grand total was only $78 for 4 days, so… I’ll take it! 🙃
Hopefully I’ll find a van I can buy as soon as I get there, but if I can’t, then I’m not going to worry too much about it. Cheap car rental.
Spent a little while working on my packing list and checking to see what all I had. I don’t know that it really feels all that real that I’m actually leaving, and that I’m leaving for so long.
My longest trip out of the country was my previous New Zealand trip, and that one has nothing on what this one is going to be.
And who knows what happens over the next 6 months.
Bought some things on Amazon and was happily surprised to find that I could have them delivered the same day I bought them. 🥳
I bought some flash memory cards for a camera, should I buy one while I’m in New Zealand, and I bought a BlueDriver OBD2 scanner. Hopefully, the vehicle I buy in New Zealand has an OBD2 port. I know they didn’t standardize on OBD2 as early as the United States did. I think they standardized somewhere around 2006?
Spent some time trying to find some good used shoes on Facebook Marketplace, as I remember from last time in New Zealand one of the questions they’ll ask when I go through customs will be whether or not my shoes have been where livestock is, and though I don’t know for sure if the shoes I’m bringing with me have been in the horse pasture in South Dakota and/or with the chickens in Arkansas, there’s a chance, so I figure I might as well have new shoes when I go, or at least, new to me shoes.
From the Walmart supercenter parking lot in Pleasant Grove, I headed over to the little park at the mouth of American Fork Canyon, where I took care of Little John, and did some other online stuff and whatnot.
Sadly, I realized that the little park has been ruined–at least from my perspective. 😞
They rebuilt the diversion dam at the bottom, sending the water that used to go into two different channels on the north side of the road now through pipes and whatnot to the South side of the road, so now there’s no stream running through the park at all. 😞
And there’s no stream running along the south side of the parking lot.
Both creek beds are effectively dried up with all the water diverted. 😞
Sad.
I had good memories of that little park, and now it’s… kind of… dead without the water. 😞
I guess there were irrigation contracts or something, so a bunch of the water has been diverted through pipes to different contract bearers, or something like that, and the rest just continues in the American Fork River.
The diversion dam looks almost like it could be a mini hydroelectric. 🤷
Headed over to visit Jared and Cortney, one last visit before I fly out for a good long while.
Chatted with them both for a bit. Then Cortney went to the gym, and I chatted with Jared a bit more, and then chatted with them both again when she got back.
A few selfies, and I was back on the road again heading over to Richard’s house.
My sister Heather called shortly after I got to Richard’s house, so I chatted with her a bit, then chatted with Richard for a good little bit while he did his workout routine, and now I’m in bed, just shy of 11:30, actually having written a post for the day. 😶
Time is running out for getting the things done that I’m hoping to get done before I leave. It’s been a bit of a failure trying to sell my friend Cory’s van for him. Hopefully we’ll get everything squared away tomorrow, though.
Then I’ll be packing and seeing how much stuff I’ve got, so I know what I can and can’t take with me. It’s going to cost $100 each way to check bags, so I figure I’ll just not bring as much with me. $200 will go a long way to buying whatever it is I would have put in my pack. 🙃
Gratitude to My Father:
- I’m grateful I was able to get such an incredible price on the rental car.
- I’m grateful to be relatively calm about the trip, despite the challenge of finding a vehicle upon arrival. We were so lucky last time. 🙃 Comfortable blessing.
- I’m grateful to have been able to visit family and friends here.
- I’m grateful that my tire didn’t blow out today, despite my forgetting to get it fixed. I hope to remember to get that done tomorrow.
- I’m grateful that my life is so flexible right now.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 