Sally Lives!

A while ago, Sarah and I decided to have a weekend out by doing a little car camping. Little did we know what the trip would lead to. We loaded up the car, fueled up, and headed north to the only camping spot I found that would allow campfires, which we have missed during all our camp-outs so far.

Just as we got to the start of the hills, about 45 minutes into our drive, we started up a small rise. Suddenly, Sally (our car) shifted, lost power, and shut off. We coasted to the side of the road to assess the problem. As we stopped, brownish smoke started pouring from under the hood. Sarah and I jumped out and while I dropped to look under the car for flames, Sarah grabbed our jug of water just in case....


With no flames, and the smoke becoming pure white, we opened the hood. Steam was pouring out of the radiator, which had blown the cap off. We let the steam subside a bit and started, slowly, adding water to the radiator to help cool everything back down. Every time we did this, the heat would create another geyser from the radiator. We decided to turn the engine over, very briefly, just to help circulate the water through the system. After about 30 minutes and 3 gallons of water, we got everything cooled down. With the radiator cap reinstalled, we tried starting Sally again.


I say tried, because after a couple attempts, she started, but ran extremely rough. not a good sign, but at least the engine hadn't seized completely. We called a tow truck and had it taken to a diesel shop for a diagnosis. It wasn't good.


If you look closely, you can see the scoring on the walls of the 2 and 3 cylinders. Unfortunately, this meant the engine would need a rebuild. Even more unfortunate, the quote to get this done was between $6,000 and $7,000 dollars, more than we paid for Sally in February. Common advice was to scrap the car and buy a replacement.

Not an option. So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. After doing some research, I found that I could get the parts I needed for less than 1/3 the price of the quote. I also was lucky enough to have a few tools handy, and was able to borrow some I didn't have. The following are a few pictures of the process.

Surveying the damage, and the upcoming project

Loosening the engine, notice the fire extinguisher on the front seat, just in case

Ready to lift

With a little persuasion, and some extra hands, Sally's engine is out

Beginning the rest of the tear down, and cleaning.

The new cylinder sleeves installed in the cleaned block

New pistons and rings being installed

Reinstalling the engine

The head, valve cover, and intake manifold reinstalled

The home-made hot side EGR block off.

Cool side block-off.

I also want to give huge thanks to my friends and family for their help, support, and advice during this unintended project. Huge and many special thanks to Graeme for loaning us a car for work, Shaun for his garage and tools, and Sarah for keeping me fed.

More good updates coming soon!

Playing catch up, Part 1

Wow! Seems like time has gotten away from us a little. Sarah and I have been cranking along and settling into a stride here in Wellington. Well, maybe more of a duck and weave as we've had a few curve balls thrown our way since our last update.

So here it goes.....

Back in July, Sarah was able to take a trip with the local women's cycling club, Revolve. They left on a Friday and took a little drive up to Rotorua to explore the trails, finding a few good places to stop along the way. Places like the RJ's Licorice factory in Levin and The Wool Company in Taihape.  She arrived to Rotorua higher than high from eating all the licorice...4 hours' she claims. Fortunately she was surrounded by 3 other fun girls with the similar problem....if you can call it that! The trip was full of fun, rekindling her memory of knitting with Ashley on the drive up, and mountain biking almost every hour of being awake (only separated by stints in the hot springs).  Needless to say she had a lot of fun and had to go on a licorice detox when she returned home.

The knitted hat Marjolien is wearing in the front seat was knitted in less than an hour by Ashley here...she said it was normal behavior but it may have had something to do with the RJ's licorice!

Mountain biking with the girls in the redwoods of the Whakarewarewa Forest in Rotorua...

With Meghan in the background, about an hour before her bike got run over in the parking lot...no joke! Not a good story (or sound) but the happy ending is that it was covered in insurance and she got a heck of an upgrade for a bike!

Marjolien's steed at full speed!

See no evil, hear no evil, taste no evil? Looks suspicious!

A fun night for the girls in Rotorua...not a late or exciting night as we had ridden over 5 hours of the trails of Rotorua that day...food consumption and hot springs were priority!

Needless to say SBH reteurned home a tuckered girl and had much rest to catch up from the abundant amount of riding they did on the trails there in Rotorua!

This is another beautiful view from our porch one morning.  As our friend Collette says, "It's all about the view"! We couldn't agree more!

And one more...needless to say we continue to be taken by how lucky we are to be in our cozy home with a view like this!

Zeph working in his man space...what better place than on the porch (in good weather that is)? He made us a lovely, stout king bed, made out of reclaimed wood from Shaun's (landlord/friend/upstairs neighbor) projects.  A good use indeed! And, a wonderful bed with storage underneath!

And the finished product!


That theory goes wayside in the rain...but, here is Zeph proving his Wellingonian-ess to adapt to the weather! Fortunately it was a warm storm and he was pretty happy to be getting his hands dirty (or clean) again!

And a really cool knife block he made out of more reclaimed wood...

And, in the kitchen department, Sarah made some gluten free breads, and one of the best ice cream sandwiches we've witnessed...gluten free and dairy free of course.  In true Kiwi fashion, our favorite vanilla ice cream right now is made from...ewe's milk! While it seems intuitive that there is ice cream made from sheep's milk, there is only one dairy that does it thus far!  Sarah is beginning to become a proponent for using lamb for their wool and ice cream over meat...if you tried the ice cream you might agree!

the gluten free bread...excellent toast as well!

and an amazing ice cream sandwich thanks to a new vegan cookie cookbook and the ewe's milk ice cream...quite a treat indeed!

 and a very good gluten free apple oat waffle...complete with (imported) maple syrup...they haven't figured out how to make maple syrup from their maple trees here yet...or, nobody is selling it! honey on the other hand, is everywhere! 

 

All for now~ More catch up soon! In the next round of pictures will be the long story of our car dieing and Zeph bringing her back to life by rebuilding an engine for the first time.  As well as a very colorful trip to Rotorua to watch the singlespeed world (mountain bike) championships!  

A Sweet Home,Sunshine, and the Best Girl Scout Cookies Ever

 Good Morning Wellington! This was taken a couple mornings ago from our deck overlooking the city and Bay

Well, where to start! I guess the thing that has been bringing us most joy this past week (aside from the sun coming out) has been our new home.  We moved from a cold, damp, older flat to a new, warm, dry home with amazing views and a huge deck for the BBQ (and Zeph)...The view is quite amazing...on a sunny day it looks unmistakeably like the Mediterranean or French Riviera, except with some beautiful snow-capped mountains in the background! 

 In the distance are some snow-capped mountains that happened last night as a result of it getting quite chilly out!

What a treat! It has been amazing how much our mood and outlook have improved with our cozy new abode.  We find ourselves racing to get home after work, just to relax and, be at home!  What a lovely feeling.  We had a fun house warming BBQ of sorts, combined with 4th of July celebration on the 4th of July.  Zeph had the BBQ going with some amazing treats and some of the best hamburgers we have had in a long time!  We had some great friends come over and it was sunny, so we felt right "at home".  

While the weather has taken some getting used to, it hasn't been all bad.  The longest it has rained for (yet) has been 4 days, then the sun comes out and dries everything out.  When the sun does come out, it has been the most calm/still days where we just want to go jump in the water and go for a swim.  Brrrr! But, still warmer than the water off California, believe it or not!  And, pristine, clean water!  

 That is heaven on a plate! Tim's infamous homemade girl scout cookies! Shortbread dipped in chocolate with a homemade coconut carmel, then drizzled with dark chocolate. Could it get any better?! YES! They were gluten free and dairy free!! BRILLIANT!!

They were worthy of two pictures!

Last night we were really fortunate to get invited over to new friends, Tim and Tracy's house for dinner.  They are both here from San Francisco and are quite a fun/lovely couple to hang out with.  Tim is working at WETA for their current film projects and Tracy is launching her presence into her yoga teachings.  Anyhow, they roasted chicken and veggies for dinner and when we thought it couldn't get any better, Tim whipped up some dessert for us.  Now, by whipped up, I mean he made some fresh coconut ice cream (dairy-less, made with coconut milk) and some heavenly, heavenly gluten-free, dairy-less Girl Scout Cookies.  Unbelievable.  Little bits of heaven that took you to your happy place all over again.  To top the night off, we watched a great movie called Paper Hearts.  A documentary of sorts about Love.  Highly recommend it for some light, feel good fun.

 While we did not take this picture, it was recently taken here in sheep country and it might put new meaning to counting sheep!

Work for both of us has been great.  We are so lucky to be working with Peter as he is a great person and a great mentor for both of us.  Zeph got his license about a week ago and mine should be here in the next couple of days which will be quite exciting.  For the record, he does have an advantage for getting the commission check though!  He has been working the industrial side of commercial real estate and I have been working the retail leasing/sales side of commercial real estate.  It is fun being at work together, learning together, and commuting together!  Quite a treat and we both feel so fortunate to be in such an amazing spot while thoroughly enjoying what we do.  We also have been working with a growing number of businesses who are expanding and we are helping them find their new locations, which is quite a lot of fun learning about their business models to better understand what locations work for them.


The last piece of the puzzle has been getting back into a workout routine as this brings us a lot of happiness and balance.  We purchased a pair of lights so Sarah was able to go for a night ride with a lovely group of girl mountain bikers a few days ago.  She left at 6pm and rode for a couple hours with the girls and the highlight being the clear night and the view from the top (as well as a couple of the girls bringing tasty treats that were passed around).  We have also been tossing around the idea of getting a couple wetsuits so we can work on our open water swimming here in the Bay. There is an area set up for swimmers so it seems more appealing, especially when the water is calm!  We have been also thinking about getting a pair of rollers (to ride indoors when it is wet/windy/cold/dark) and to possibly work on the (trail) running skills a bit as well.  All ideas that we'll probably figure out (hopefully before it turns to summer)!

That is all for now.  This week looks to be quite busy with work, which is a good thing!  Sarah is fortunate to be going back to Rotorua with the girls on Friday for a girls' weekend getaway on the mountain bikes.  If there was a way she could tuck Zeph into her pack, she would!  Hope all is well with you and we'll be in touch! Hugs, Sarah & Zeph

More Pictures from the Epic

While life here in Wellington is taking off in it's own direction, we recently found new pictures from the Alpine Epic that we still thoroughly enjoy reflecting upon.  Some are our pictures and some taken by a good friend, Derek Morrison, who helped us get through each day of the race by popping up in some random location with his huge camera, documenting the ride in a way that really caught our emotions...(in a good way)!

 

After day 3, cooling down in the local river...that is Zeph and I still looking a bit delirious (and relieved) that we made it through another day...

The Great Mt. Cook in beautiful pre-dawn light. There really is no wonder why or how this mountain helped transform an ordinary bee keeper into the first man who scaled Mt. Everest

This road on Stage 6, day 4, was so long, long, long...however this picture grasps a much different viewpoint

 This was the beginning of Stage 1 or Stage 2...can't really differentiate between the two as they all started bloody fast...

 There were more than a couple gorges we rode down (and back up and out) during the four days. This one had winds of epic proportion blowing down it.

 And another gorge...truly straight out of Lord of the Rings...

 And yet another river crossing...right when our feet started to dry out, we would have to cross yet another river...

 One of our more favorite pictures with the great Mt. Cook in the background...These four riders were the lead riders of the race and I can assure you they spent a significantly shorter amount of time in the saddle each day than us! We would finish our ride to find our friend Kashi (the rear one in the photo riding next to his partner Marcus) already showered and looking fresh as a daisy.

 And then there was the shack...for those of you who have read the book, The Shack...this was an exact description of it...we rode around the corner and it took my breath away as we were directly across from the most peaceful, isolated shack we had ever laid eyes on. To say it was amazing would be an understatement...

That's all for now! Zeph and I just started our third week of working for Wellington Realty, which is a boutique commercial real estate firm here in Thorndon (the nicer part of Wellington for a visual)...We are really lucky to be working with our boss, Peter, who loves what he does and is teaching us all he knows- which is a lot! He has 41 years experience valuing, leasing, and selling commercial real estate here in Wellington, so we couldn't have found a better person to learn from.  We moved into a flat and haven't taken any pictures as it has been a bit of a depressing spot, even for us! It is all gray, which probably hasn't helped, quite cold and very wet.  Not until the very recent past did they begin insulating homes and making windows with more than 1 pane!  It was also giving us a commute to work that was the last thing we wanted...so, we went out and found a new place we get to move into in a little over a week.  It is a new (2 1/2 years old), cozy one bedroom, with a heck of a view, a great deck (for Z's BBQ), conveniently located, with lots of insulation, dual paned windows (YAY)! So, a new appreciation for warmth, dryness, and more sun! YAY! We will definitely be taking some pictures to share...Hope all is well with all of you and know we think of you often and miss you like mad...and send lots of Love your way...All the best...S&Z

Bittersweet

 Reflecting on happy days on our lovely Orbeas during the AlpineEpic

There is no question we have so much to be thankful/grateful for in our lives...We have each other, we have our health, we have amazing family and friends (new friends we are meeting every day), we are on an adventure of a lifetime, we now have a great little flat with a view, and we now have jobs (yay)! Those are all the sweet things in our lives.  The bitter of the bittersweet happened last Friday night (or wee hours of Saturday morning) when our own Queen Sally (our Isuzu Bighorn) was loaded to the rim for the big move into our new flat Saturday morning. She was full of about 2/3rds of our belongings, including our lovely Orbea mountain bikes, huge bags of all our riding clothes, camping equipment, sleeping bags, tents, replacement parts for the bikes that we brought over from the states as they are even more expensive here...only to find it all gone the next morning.  Sally had essentially been mugged.  Her driver's side window broken, where they unlocked her, and took everything out the back.  We try not to recall that feeling of seeing our vehicle empty as it had been packed to the rim.  We have always been as safe as we can with our bikes as they are worth so much to us.  They were covered so no one could see them, and covered again with all the stuff we were moving the next morning.  And, there was Sally, empty.  It had been raining a lot so fingerprints were not an option.  We don't know who or how or why...on our good days we are hopeful and on our bad days we beat ourselves up over what we could have done different.  There was no insurance for the contents as when we went to get content insurance, we needed a home address, which we didn't have because we were traveling. When we tried to get travel insurance, it was only good for a week and only covered up to $1,000 per bike.  While everyone seems to have different explanations as far as what happened, or what will happen, we don't really care...we only want our stuff back and thinking about worse case scenarios surely doesn't make us feel any better or get us any closer to finding it.  Granted, it is just "stuff".  But in this case, it was our stuff which happened to have a lot of sentimental value...from the hand me down bike Zeph had given me to ride, to the bikes we got engaged on, to my favorite green beenie, to Zeph's bike that was part of his payment for working on the Luna team last year.  Through the experience we have met a lot of amazing people and we feel like the entire bike community here is looking out for us to find our bikes.  A couple days ago we received an email from Carl, who insisted us borrow a couple of his (really nice) mountain bikes for the next 6 weeks while he is gone.  So, we focus on those great people, not the morons that took our stuff, and we remain hopeful we will see it all again very, very soon.

 A little more reflection...please bring our ponies back to us or let us find them soon!

On the other front (the "sweet" front), we have both spent the last two weeks interviewing with different real estate firms.  We have been organized and diligent and disciplined, in our questions we ask to learn more about how each organization operates and where each of will fit best.  Funny, after individually interviewing, we have both chosen to work with a small, boutique commercial firm here in Wellington called Wellington Realty (www.wellingtonrealty.co.nz).  The owner is one of the nicest people we have met here, with a great reputation, 41 years of experience that he wants to teach (us), and above all, he loves what he does which makes him very good at it.  So, we are blessed as we will be getting paid to learn, which motivates us greatly to make Wellington Realty its own David and Goliath success story.  And, just like that, we both begin our new "job" Tuesday morning at 9am, which is very exciting indeed.

 Wellington's own Bittersweet Chocolate truffles... 

We continue to explore the great trails (www.tracks.org.nz)here in Wellington and are quickly learning which ones are still in good shape after 4 inches of rain as there is no question we are approaching the middle of winter.  We did move into our new flat, which has great views of the ocean in Lyall Bay, the airport (that is a good view for the two of us), and a lovely golf course.  We are filling it with hand me downs and seconds that we are quite grateful for (we are sitting at a loaner table from Linda and chilly bins/ice chests as I type). We look forward to a home and are working on our dream list of amenities including a gas stove, a garage, a view, a bathtub, good insulation, a garden/backyard, and maybe a security system...


That is the update here in lovely Wellington.  We continue to enjoy ourselves and learning lots about ourselves and each other in the process.  I apologize for not writing sooner but I assure you would not have wanted to read anything I would've written in the past week as our moods were down (this is a mild understatement), and I had writers block.  Hope you are all enjoying the warmer weather in the states, wherever you are and know you are never far from our thoughts.  Much love, Sarah & Zeph.

Dunedin, another ferry ride, and a wee little hedgehog

Long story short, we only lasted a week in Dunedin.  And, in all honesty, if Zeph didn't have some work obligations (a job), we would have left for Welly after Day 1.  In hindsight, our trip to Dunedin was a dark week that brought much needed clarity. We should have known when we didn't want to leave Wellington that we, well, shouldn't have left Wellington.  We came to New Zealand for a change, for opportunity, and for a quality of life more fitting for the two of us and our outdoorsy lifestyles.  And with that, we went to Dunedin for a job.  The logic is that our bank accounts could use some income and which often comes most readily from a job and it was the only offer we had thus far.  Zeph had vowed to never work in the retail industry again and while we were optimistic in understanding this job would be different as it was an outdoor store with what sounded like a good atmosphere...it was still retail at the end of the day.  Needless to say after the first day the look of discouragement from Zeph was overwhelming.  After the last few months of dreaming big and thinking about what we want in our lives, it was if someone had thrown the bird back in the cage and clipped its wings.  He decided to go for a second day and it was more of the same and it was at that point we reminded ourselves why we came to New Zealand in the first place.  Dunedin was nice, but it was cold in a wet, moldy, bone chilling way.  Nothing was ever dry, including the carpet or our clothes or our hair... It was our reality that Dunedin just wasn't us and retail just wasn't Z any more and while we wish we wouldn't have had to drive the 9 hour trip each way (plus 3 hour ferry), we wouldn't have known who we weren't anymore, or who we wanted to become, if we hadn't made that trip.  So, after helping out at the shop for the remaining week, we made the trip back to Wellington- in one day.  We left at 6am and arrived in Welly at 9p at night.  There were many epiphanies along the way and we learned more about ourselves and each other along the way that it made the whole trip worth it.  The further north we traveled away from Dunedin and toward Wellington, the better we felt.  Granted, it warmed up a bit as well and we began to thaw out which felt wonderful.

 Welly looking south and the South Island to the left in the distance...

Lyall Bay in Welly, looking south again...

On the Eastern Walkway behind Seatoun in Welly...

We keep thinking the foliage on the Eastern Walkway would be a perfect place for Kiwis to live...we keep looking (and listening)!

It has now been a little over a week since we have been back in Welly and there is no other way to explain how nice it has been aside from the fact it feels really good.  We came back to Welly with new plans and goals and dreams for ourselves and each other.  We want those opportunities that are a perfect fit for us and are doing everything in our power to have them find us.  We've had many new experiences throughout the week, from exploring the vast Welly library, finding new trails, eating new forms of local seafood, and going to a real estate auction...We are learning new things, meeting new people, and are taking a real estate course to make us more employable as well as to learn more and add another tool to our toolbox- further enabling us ways to contribute to the world in better ways.  While we may not know what the exact outcome looks like yet, we continue to add to the list of "knowns" and continue to figure out what truly makes us happy.  We know we left some of our happy in California because we left our friends and our family and all our amazing supporters who encouraged us to make this journey...and that we reflect often on (as well as staying in touch as much as possible)!

 Zeph took an amazing picture of some wild parsley growing alongside the Eastern Walkway...

Needless to say, we have now added some things back into our lives that is bringing back some much needed normality.  We now have a schedule and are looking for "jobs" and a home.  We hold onto the things that make us feel at home, whether it is each other, a great Mexican meal (made by Sarah as there is little Mex here), good music, the smell of pine trees...and riding our bikes.  

 A calm Wellington evening...

We have continued to find more amazing trails around Wellington.  After our class gets out every afternoon, we hit the trails in Bellmont Reserve, where we ride endless singletrack, undulating up into the pine groves and over the sheep pastures.  Today we were descending back to the car and Zeph came to a screeching halt as a baby hedgehog sat frozen in the middle of the trail.  We sneaked by him as he looked a bit confused but oh, so cute...

Had to include a borrowed picture as we didn't have a camera on us, but they are SO cute!