Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Relax. This story has a happy ending, thanks to the honesty and helpfulness of New Zealanders.
Tyler Speaking.
I have been in the practice of keeping my passport and a significant amount of reserve cash in a cloth moneybelt worn under the clothing when we are relocating from place to place. When we layover for two or more nights in the same lodging, I have been taking the moneybelt off and stashing it someplace in the room. You already know where this is headed! Sunday morning we left Whangerei in the Northlands after a very pleasant three-day stay, about a three-hour drive north of Auckland. Sunday night we stayed in Whitianga on the east side of the Coromandel peninsula. Monday night we stayed in Thames on the west side of the peninsula, about two hours southeast of Auckland. Monday evening I realized that I hadn't seen or even thought about my moneybelt for several days. The sickening feeling got worse and worse as Paula and tore through everything we had brought with us. Eventually it came down to the supposition that I must have left it at the B&B in Whangerei - most likely in the little drawer in the nightstand next to my side of the bed. So I phoned the people we had stayed with, and she checked right away while I was on the phone. Eureka! It was, indeed, in the nightstand drawer. So now we were faced with 5 hours of driving back to Whangerei, and another several hours back toward the south of the North Island where we intended to make our next stop. But, praise God! The B&B family had a family member who just happened to be going to Auckland anyway, so we set up a rendezvous at the Auckland Airport terminal, 5:30 pm Tuesday. We were there early, and so was the gracious courier. I got my moneybelt (with all the stuff undisturbed, of course), and I thanked him warmly for saving us at least six hours of driving that day.
I suppose this had to happen at least once on this trip, so I would learn the lesson! And so Paula will have a good story to tell the grandchildren some day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Us
- Tyler B. and Paula M. Thompson
- Midland, Michigan, United States
- Tyler is a retired research scientist (PhD Chemistry, University of Illinois) who worked for The Dow Chemical Company. The last 16 years of his career he served as grants and contracts manager for Dow's External Technology program, involving Dow sponsored research grants to universities, government research contracts into Dow, and a variety of other industry/university/government research partnerships. Paula is a botanist with graduate work in plant taxonomy. She worked as a microbiology research assistant for four years while Tyler was in graduate school, then led a busy life raising 3 kids, gardening, and serving in a variety of church ministries and activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment