Day 66 – Friday 16 December

Auckland, NZ – Melbourne

Having missed our scheduled connection in Auckland, we flew home on the next flight, which was 4 hours later – a small dampner on another great holiday.

The highlights of this trip were:

1. catching up with great friends, namely (in chronological order):

 - Joan & Peter (first on our West Coast road trip), and then at their home in St. Louis, Missouri, with their grown-up children, Shona & Thomas,

- Bill’s cousin, Maria, in San Diego,

- Lee, at his home in Winona, Mississippi,

- Mitch & Regina, at their home in New York City

- Abigail & Andrew, at their home in New York City, with their rapidly growing-up children, Amelia & Asher

- Jamie, in New York City
- Jeremy & Holly, visiting from the UK
- Carol & Peter, visiting from the UK

2. making new friends, on our Panama Canal cruise:

- Gary & Roni

- Shirley & Lee

- Rick & Maureen,

- Fred

- Hans

3A. our 23-day West Coast road trip, which included lovely stays in Santa Barbara, LA & San Diego, in California, Portland, in Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. We drove 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometres), through 4 US states (California, Nevada, Oregon & Washington),

3B. our 2-day West Coast rail trip, from Seattle to San Diego,

3C. our 16-day cruise, from San Diego, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, via the Panama Canal, and visiting Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rico, Columbia, and the Bahamas,

3D. our 14-day road trip in the mid and eastern states, which included lovely stays in Winona and St.Louis. We drove a further 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometres), through 15 US states (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania & New Jersey), and

3E. our 11-day finale in New York City

Nb. We added visits to a further 7 Capitol Buildings, namely: Carson City, Nevada; Sacramento, California; Tallahassee, Florida; Montgomery, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; Frankfort, Kentucky; Richmond, Virginia.

Home safely and surely.

Signing off now – thank you for keeping up with us.