Layover at Amethyst Motor Lodge, Part I

We sleep until 8:00! It’s glorious. We drink green smoothies and French pressed coffee for breakfast. I call my parents and talk to them for quite a while, but it’s never long enough. Then it’s time to make our first grocery run.

We are packing boxes for 26 days’ worth of food, and mailing several drops to ourselves on the South Island. Although none are strictly mandatory, several are to avoid several hundred kilometers and several days of hitchhiking to resupply in a town, which is basically mandatory in my book. This means we will have to buy in rounds, as we can only carry back to the room what will fit in our empty packs at one time.

One trip to Pak N Save, one trip to Countdown, one trip to New World and the Asian Market, one trip to Pak N Save. The pile in our room is intimidating, and there are signs a housekeeper was in while we were out on a mission- what she must have thought. We notice In Time and The Thomas Crown Affair, both movies that had come up in conversation recently, were scheduled to play tonight. We make it home from a second trip to New World just in time (ha), only to discover the channel they are playing on is not one we can access, even though the motel heavily markets use of this cable. Oh well, if that’s the only thing wrong with this place, I cannot complain. The one movie channel we can access is playing The Avengers: Civil War. That will do.

We receive a picture of Super Mario, Princess Peach, and Bro at the Northern Southern Terminus monument. Yeah!! They made their epic day!

We repackage and measure and mix and seal until we are ready to sleep. I draw a bath and type journal entries amidst the spa jets until I am so warm and relaxed I melt onto the bed.