Rotorua and New Plymouth

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Sorry to be so long in writing. We haven't frozen, but it was the worst snowstorm that the North Island had seen in 25 years. They closed quite a few highways just a little south of us and there was snow on the mountain in front of Kenneth and Dianne's which they hadn't seen in the 20 years that they have lived here. We just stayed inside for two days close to the fire and trying to make ourselves go into the rest of the house where we could see our breath. Going to bed was quite an experience until the bed got warm. I check the weather online each day and it tells you how many layers to wear to be comfortable for the day. We have gone from 4 layers to 2 layers a day. A nice improvement. We even got to see the sun yesterday.

Tuesday, we went to visit a friend in Rotorua which has too many tourists to look at the hot pools and lot of Maori(native New Zealanders) history. We had a good visit with John before he had to go to work at 2:00 pm. Then, we went and had a fast food Kiwi lunch of hot meat pies. Kenneth had steak & kidney, Jim and I had steak and Chrissy had a mince pie which was the best of the three. They call hamburger "mince" here which does makes better sense. It's only about an hour from here, so we got back easily and only got rained on a little.
Yesterday, Wednesday, we took a day trip right across the island to New Plymouth where Mt. Egmont and a park where the whole hillside is covered in rhododendrons. It was beautiful hilly land to get to the western coast and so good to see the ocean again. The western side of the North Island has black sand from the iron content in it. Not nice to walk on in the summer when it's hot. When we got there, about a 3 hour drive, Mt. Egmont was covered in clouds and the rhododendrons are not blooming yet since the Spring has been so cool. So, we came back home and just had a good day out.

Today, it is supposed to be cloudy and the high about 58 degrees - not too unlike Columbus, but with no heat in the house and pretty damp. We feel great though so it must agree with us. We are planning to stay close to home as Kenneth's older brother came down on is motorcycle yesterday evening to visit with us.
Will check in later.

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