Naughty Possums and Warm Endings

            I killed a possum.  The incident happened around 9:00 pm Saturday night on the west coast. 

            I’m driving Phyllis, minding my business, when I see this mangy critter tiptoeing the centerline.   Michael, Steve and Lexi scream ‘Possum’ in unison.  Instinctively, I crank Phyllis’s big hips over the centerline and send that possum straight to hell.  The whole car cheered.

            Now before any of you look down on my intentional slaughtering of an animal I had no intention of eating, remember that possums are little shits.  There are over 70 million of them in New Zealand and only 4 million people.  They kill everything.  One night those little scoundrels tried to steal my salami, which is a capital offence in my book.  No Catholic guilt here.

          Bloodshed aside, break was beautiful.  We drove 2000 kilometers, hiked 80, and kayaked 20.  It was over an hour before it began.

            Speaking of endings, Folk Night is almost finished.  I could write about how perfect every night has been up top the lighthouse.  But you folks know. We created it together.  You listened to all the harmonies, so sweet your eyes closed just to hear a bit better.  As well as the train wrecks – Edmund Fitzgeralds and Men of Constant Sorrow.  You saw lamplight frame pretty faces.  Your fingers felt friendly hands and your cheeks familiar shoulders.  You know. 

            I wish I could be there.  I’m not sure where I’m sleeping this weekend — a coastal cave, mountain pass, rainy fjord, or worst-case scenario, my flat.  But no matter where I close my eyes, I’ll put a beer under my pillow.  When my dreams are warm light and country twang, I’ll wake up, crack it open and say a toast.

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you are dead.

Happy Birthday

            It’s fall in Dunedin.  Red leaves hide broken glass that once glittered in the summer sun.  Antarctic winds have made beaches a memory.  My favorite season.  But can there be fall without Halloween, hunting, or the Packers?  Could Easter, fall break, and April trout fishing be adequate replacements? Perhaps.    

            As temperatures fall in the south, Mike Funk turns 60 in La Crosse.  Sam and David are flying in from Seattle, and the Kots are piling down from the Cities.  I can only imagine a perfect celebration. A glowing kitchen with open beers and windows.  Zula saying, “I love you Papa,” while her mom picks white frosting from her red hair.  The family laughing late into the night.  Followed by dawn breaking over Vernon County. There is no place better than Wisconsin on the edge of summer. 

            But tomorrow it’s break, which ain’t too bad either.  No school for ten days.  Phyllis and her owners are hauling up to Abel Tasman National Park to dip our toes in white sand and green pools.

            Happy birthday Dad.  I hope it is a good one.  I wish I could wet a line and crack a beer with you.  Miss you.  Love you. 

-- Buddy

Phyllis and A Full Night’s Rest

             So, I bought a car.  Michael, Steve, Lexi and I pooled together our New Zealand monopoly money for a Mitsubishi Diamante. We've been calling her Phyllis.  Along with Clinton’s reelection and the second to last packers super bowl title, Phyllis is another gorgeous child of 1996.  A sexy beige, wheel on the right, owners manual in Japanese, 220,000 kilometers (whatever that means), and a few cuts and bruises, but nothing out of the ordinary for a decade of life. 

            With the pink slip somewhere and a loose form of insurance protecting our names, we filled our baby’s trunk with tents and hit the left side of the road.  Our destination was Wanaka – a mountain town near the west coast.  There we met up with Jack and Tris.  Together we crawled up mountains in the sunshine.  At night we pitched our tents on the shores of Lake Wanaka. 

            I have spent most of my weekends here in a tent.  I love sleeping outside, but in the past it has been hard to find rest.  Nights under canvass roofs seem long.  Dawns refuse to come.  Noises from dark trees cut ribbons through dreams. 

            But lately the ground has been feeling different – warmer, softer, familiar.  My face presses deep into the pad below me, and I wake up at first light.  I don’t stir.  No noise steals my sleep. 

            What more does a man need than a fifteen year old whip and a full night’s rest?

            So let me make a suggestion.  Dust off a tent and head out for the weekend.  Up north perhaps?  It’s the time of the year when we all should be sleeping under the stars.  

My Boys

 

            My boys have left for the weekend.  They found a yoga retreat in the far southwest corner and hitched a ride.  I expect they will spend the weekend perfecting already perfect poses and using blue eyes to charm every yogi in the southern hemisphere.  So now it’s time for me to write about them. 

            For those who don’t know, my boys are Jack and Tristan -- two friends from the Cities.  I’ve known Tristan since freshman year. He started dating Jack about six months ago who we quickly fell in love with as he quoted Liz Lemon while sipping on a Diet Rite and vodka.  Jack has been traveling in Australia and Aotearoa for about two months.   Trissy reunited with him around three weeks ago, and we all finally linked arms in Dunedin.

              Last weekend we rented a car named Dally.  Drove over the Southern Alps, up the west coast, across sunny northland, east, and home.  We breathed it all in – mountain passes, black sand, glaciers, swimming holes, microbrews, late nights, and early mornings.

            After we returned, I thought a lot about this post.  The trip was pure and exhilarating, which isn’t easy to write about.  As usual, I didn’t want to retrace the outline of every vista.  I wanted to describe how it all felt.  How the alpine winds through Dally’s open sunroof casually changed to a cozy coastal breeze as we descended towards the ocean.  The way the boys’ hands slowly slipped towards each other every few minuets, a long time for loving hands to be apart.  How my glass of New Zealand microbrew endured sweating in the noon sun as we passed hours playing cards. The rain testing our tents when we said good night. 

            I guess what I’m getting at is that our destinations weren’t important.  What was pure and exhilarating was that we were with each other.  We saw everything together.  We shared it all.  

Trout, Beaches and Lovers

 

            Happy spring break.  While you folks were lounging in warmer pastures, consuming potato sacks full of Irish booze, and giving into the March Madness coma, I was hooking into my first Kiwi trout. 

            Last Saturday, I went fishing with my buddy Evan at a reservoir about a half hour from town.  We worked the water for a while with no success.  Finally, I threw my slob choker near a small stream that fed into the reservoir.  Before I knew it, I was wrestling a nasty guy out of his afternoon hole.  As I was bringing him out of the water, he threw the hook – unfortunately no pictures.  But by Mike Funk standards, it was a fish in the creel.  Evan and I agreed that he was about a three-pound rainbow – average by New Zealand standards but a slob in Wisconsin.  It was pure joy.

            I chased a morning of fishing with a night of camping on the beach.  I met up with a group of friends at Boulder Beach on the Otago Peninsula.  We spent the night huddled around a few bottles of wine, hoping a tsunami didn’t take us into the darkness. 

            Now the lovers (Tris and Jack) have arrived.  We are renting a car and heading up the coast for the weekend.  The promise of tropical north, along with orange and blond hair flying free from open windows is making school go down a little easier this week. 

            So, my flower babies.  Strip off your parkas and listen to the snow dripping.  Spring is just around the corner.

Silence in Dunedin and Adventure in Queenstown

            Dunedin is finally quiet.  Every young thrill seeker has left for the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, where they will pay real money to chase breakfast maggots with shots of horse semen (not a joke).  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m as intrigued by horse semen as the next fella.  But I could do a shot of that for a lot less money back in Wisconsin.  Granted it would probably be cow semen, but what’s the difference? … Anyway, I decided to stay home.  Rest up.  Prepare for whatever’s next.  Now I have time to update all my folks, who I expect are staring at bare trees from frosted windows, waiting for a single bud to appear.

            Here the trees have leaves but school keeps me inside.  I could go through my whole schedule, but who really cares about school?  We all have to sit in class sometimes.  So, I’ll focus on my weekend in Queenstown – the adventure capital of the world.  A couple buddies were planning a trip.  I snagged an open seat and went along for the ride. 

            Normally youths go to Queenstown to bungee jump, skydive, jet boat, or some other kind of dangerous nonsense.  I went to Queenstown for mountains and trails.  When all my friends were doing the second highest bungee jump in the world, I climbed Queenstown Hill outside of the city center.  On top I found an old dirt bike track through a mountain pass.   The highland pass was arid – desert brown rather than the typical New Zealand green.  On either side were two mountain ranges with frosted peaks.  Clouds passed over the summits, casting shadows and changing colors.   I walked the track for five hours, taking time to sit and watch the land move around me. When the sun began to fall, I found my way back into town.  

            I don’t regret choosing not to bungee jump.  The adventure I’m looking for happens on back country trails that few know.  So all things considered, I found my adventure in Queenstown. 

Is My Tent Leaking?

 

            A few days ago I bought a $25 tent from K Mart and recruited two like-minded REI dividend recipients, Steve and Lexi, to join me for a weekend on the Otago Peninsula.  Our plan was to see everything and sleep where we could.  We accomplished both.  Covering 20 kilometers a day, we saw beaches, mountain tops, cliffs, seals, wild flowers, and many sassy sheep. 

            But I won’t map the whole peninsula.  There is too much to write about.  Instead I’ll focus on our last evening.   

             A couple friends told us about the perfect campsite right off a trail leading to Boulder Beach.  Boulder Beach had been closed the last two months for penguin mating season – insert joke here – so nobody was on the trail.  We hiked down to a patch of trees between the road and the beach.  In the small tree line we found the only flat area on the peninsula, sheltered by a dense canopy of moss-covered trees.  Next to the tree fort was a bubbling stream.  Beyond it, a view of the Pacific.  We made camp, ate dinner, then took a sunset walk to the end of the trail.

            The three of us cleared the trees and stopped.  Everything was in front of us -- the sun sliding behind ocean cliffs, the beach in constant motion, sand changing from light to dark with each wave, rock formations resisting the tide. No one said anything.  We just watched until the sun was gone.  Then we slept. 

            The best days I’ve had here are unplanned.  I’m out there doing something and all the sudden I find the sun setting over the Pacific.  No trail, lookout, or guided tour can compare.  

            On a different note, I’ve heard whispers of blizzards and protests back home.  So my slushie friends find the nearest electric blanket or a willing friend to keep you warm.  All winters come to an end. And keep pounding on the capital door.  With enough noise, it will open eventually.