Being the unofficial anniversary of my honeymoon in New Zealand two years ago, I thought I’d post some pictures we took there, since this is a photo blog and all. =)

We spent 3 weeks on the North Island, traversing from the Bay of Island to Rotorua to Taupo to Waitomo to Auckland. In the interest of sharing info for other travelers out there, I’ll list what we did in what city.

Bay of Islands - Took the boat tour of the islands, took a bus tour to Cape Rienga (which includes driving along the 90 Mile Beach and sand boarding), crashed an Agriculture & Pasture show.

Rotorua - zorbing, white-water rafting on the Kaituna River (class IV and V rapids), geo-thermal sight-seeing

Taupo - The Tongariro Crossing (the most beautiful day-hike I have had the privilege of experiencing)

On the way to Waitomo, we hunted down a local rock climbing spot to try our hand at the volcanic rocks. Pretty cool stuff, but the fields were murder on my allergies.

Waitomo - caving the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. We went with a company called Waitomo Caves Adventure on their 7 hour Lost World Epic adventure. One of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life… virtually indescribable. I wasn’t able to take a camera with me because we were in wetsuits, waist-deep in water, most of the time.

Auckland - pretty much just city-mucking… after all the adventures in more rural New Zealand, getting back to city-life was a bit of an adjustment.

It’s an amazing destination if you love adventures, crisp/clean air, and seeing some things just a little bit differently. Quick fact: there is nothing native to New Zealand (plants/animals) that can kill you.

By the way, these were all taking with either a Nikon N65, a Canon S45, or Canon S80 (because we dropped the S45 on a wet beach)  - this is a dSLR-free post. =)

I’ve been meaning to blog this for awhile now. Back when I went to San Francisco a month and a half ago for Jeff and Sharon’s wedding, I ended up stopped by a show of award winning dahlias with some friends. It’s really incredible what people can do when they devote themselves to it, especially when there are some many varieties of dahlias - who knew?! A wonderful show of color and texture, and I just wanted to share that.

Wow… that’s quite the title. Anyway, I’ve gone ahead an updated the look of my blog since (*announcement!) I am working on a brand spankin’ new website with BigFolio. I was going to wait and do the whole thing together, but since this blog is a little bit wider and gives me more space for bigger pictures, I figured I might as well do it now. Besides, it’s a bit of teaser for my website to come. =) If it shows up kind of weird or not at all, try refreshing the screen a few times (Macs = Cmd+R, PCs = F5?).

Okay, so as I mentioned in my previous post, Jeannie and I drove out to Phoenix for a few days over the past weekend. I had never been to Phoenix before and my sister hooked us up with an awesome discount at the J.W Marriott Resort there. If you ever feel like doing absolutely nothing, this place is perfect for that kind of (in)activity. Although Jeannie and I are mostly adventure/new-experience travel people, this time it was exactly that type of trip we were envisioning. One thing that I realized pretty early on at Phoenix is how warm it stays during the night. We were able to sit outside with a light jacket and have that be perfectly comfortable, which made for some nice nights just reconnecting and talking with each other under a starlit sky.

One of the great things I learned about driving to Phoenix on the 10 is that it goes right by Joshua Tree and Salton Sea. We decided to hit Joshua Tree on the way to Phoenix and then Salton Sea on the way back. You can tell in the pictures how much the sky cleared up in just those few days, since J.Tree and Salton Sea are actually pretty close to each other. Oh, and the first two picture are taken by Jeannie. The first is me playing with me new (old) Hasselblad, and the second is self-explanatory. =P