Two Beers and a Pretzel

The finally tally is:

13 Countries in which I spent significant time: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Cambodia, India, and USA (14 if you count Los Angeles)

3 Countries where I saw just the airport: Panama, Malaysia, UAE

1 Country where I was kind-of there but not legally:  Paraguay

Cameras:

2 SLR’s made it 2 weeks before I sent them home.

Oddly, I just found my camera bag with the straps adjusted for my former size – 55 lbs ago…

The pic doesn’t even show it that well – it’s like 4″ of extra radius in every direction…

1 Olympus 1030 SW made it through 7 months of pure abuse before the internal LCD cracked.

The Olympus u-Tough 8000 made through 7 weeks of pampering and underwater use before it developed a leak that did not affecting the imaging, but screwed up the battery compartment.  Thankfully that only cost $30 to fix at the repair shop in India.

I just got the original 1030sw back from Olympus, and I’m soooooooo happy.  I really like that camrea much more than the uTough 8000.

The Canon G9 is still cranking.  A great camera for travel, landscape shots, and time-lapse – especially if you don’t want to carry a whole SLR rig, but could use a bit more wide angle.

Over 13,000 pictures.  So anyone who says they “want to see all of your pictures”, you can, but I might not be there to narrate.

Clothing:

Both pair of North Face travel pants ripped.  The green ones were saved by the sewing skill of a Thai hill-tribe woman, but may not make it too much longer.

The hiking shoes died a moldy death after the same motorcycle trip to the hill tribe – but I threw them out at Bottle Beach.

My favorite Yosemite National Park shirt was accidentally left at a Cool Bananas hostel in Australia.

It’s nice being home, but still pretty strange.  Food is ridiculously expensive.  When did a Skyline small 3 way and chili-chese sandwich + water get to $6??  It wasn’t even as tasty as I remember.  And a salad a Chipotle is almost $6.  Jeez – that’s like 50 cents of lettuce and beans and a little chicken.

The best part of being home (aside from family) is having my car back.  I was a bit worried about driving again, but after going well over double the speed limit on my favorite streach of road somewhere south of Louisville, I think I’m back to my old habit of excessive speed in reasonably safe driving conditoins.