I was gonna stay home and look what I got...a whole lotta adventure and a whole lotta love. It's been two months since I have been back in beautiful lake Tahoe, my home, and I don't plan on leaving for a while, not for a long while anyway. Next week i am tackling the pacific northwest: seattle to tahoe. I cant wait. You know there are always adventures around every corner. Keep up the adventure; I know I will keep working on mine.  Keep checking back- the adventures are just beginning.

Its been a while...but I am back home.

Its been a while since words have been written on this page.  And since then, my life has been turned upside down yet again.  Or, should I say, my life has been turned back right-side up?

I am back in Tennessee with people I love and with people who love me.  I am with my dog.  I have a unrelenting cellular device and I am back behind the wheel of a stylie Subaru.  It feels good.  Tennessee rocks.  It's gorgeous and green and lovely and loving.  But, as we now know, and some have known all along, I don't stay in one place for long.

Tomorrow, I hit the road yet again; away from the friends who make the world go 'round but towards more adventure.  One thing I have learned from my travels is that adventure is always around the corner.  Life is an adventure.  A big, fun, funny adventure.

I shed a tear as I leave behind yet another wonderful place (and all the people who come with it) but this feeling will always be with me on every new adventure I find as I carry on with this crazy trip I like to call life.
 

I made it North.  Just in time too.  My days in NZ are coming close to an end.  I made this heart to commemorate my time here in NZ, my experiences on this trip have been...fabulous, inexplicable, perfect.  This heart has now been washed away by the tide that hits the Kapiti coast on the west side of the North Island of New Zealand.  Buts its been washed away to the sea where my love for everyone I have met, for everyone who allowed this trip to take place, will always be.  A big love shout out for all my new friends. WhooHoo!

The heart of shells was constructed on a rainy, deserted beach up the west coast of NZ.  In the photo above, the last bit of land you see there in the distance, is this deserted and gorgeous beach of which I speak. Paraparaumu: where they make fresh fruit ice cream, tractors pull boats on to the beach and you can walk for miles without much of another person running into you.  Its beautiful.

Later in the day, on my way back to Wellington, I found the sunshine and a locally known trail to these crazy  high bluffs.  Just taking in another day's scenery in NZ...no big deal...yes, it is a big deal.  Every where you look, more gorgeousness.  Kinda like life I suppose, depends on how you look at it but, there sure is a lot out there to love.   

Vintage sunrises...and vintage is over!

Every week of mine is like the longest day...the days run into one another and out spits...Wednesday, already!?  Soon I will be done and the sunrises will be seen less frequently with these eyes.  And oh, boy, do I need some sleep. But, the grapes don't recognize this fact, do they?  Nope!  The grapes are selfish and need to be turned into wine.  So we have worked 24/7 for almost a month.

This means that I have been lucky enough to have almost a month of sunrises.

Now, however, vintage is coming to an end, the grapes just ain't graping any more and, so... my travels will continue. Yay!  I head to the North Island/Wellington on Saturday...and may the adventures keep coming!

So many sunrises...and grapes...and barrels and tanks...

 Barrels perched lovingly in the tippy tank yard, followed by dozens of pairs of 50,000 liter tanks and then 100,000s.

 This is Christian.  We work together in the crush...and thank goodness. He is a giant German and his family owns vineyards/a winery in Germany.  At least someone can get something done around here/move these hoses in less than ten minutes like me/know what the heck that noise is!

 Sauv Blanc...its tasty, even in 25 tons.

Sunrise over the vineyard.  Its nice...because I know I am off soon.  

Winery cellar hand, that is my job...and what that means is that I am the winery's bitch.  I run around dragging hoses, switching lines from 50,000 liter tanks to other 50,000 liter tanks, I participate in warming tanks, inoculation of yeast, yadayada.

But, mostly, I look at grapes get dropped and crushed and sent to be pressed.  It is quite dramatic when 15 tons of grapes drop into the stainless steal 25 ton capacity 'hopper,' as its called.  This is where the fruit hits the winery and starts its way to becoming wine.



And, this is what I get to look at all day...wait...all night. Yup, I work from 7pm to 7:30 am...fancy, eh?  Its not so bad, just sticky...all the time sticky.

Actually, on one of my first days a couple weeks ago, when I was cleaning up grapes, sweeping and scooping, squeegeeing and shoveling massive amounts of spilled grapes into piles to go into the conveyor to go out to the massive mound of waste grapes one of the winemakers called down to me: "Working in the winery is real glamorous, eh?"

Just what I was thinking, Darren, thanks.
 
Its sticky, its industrial, there are grapes everywhere, I don't know what the heck that machine is for, its dangerous, grapes, climbing up and down stairs, crushing grapes, hanging out with truckers and scooping grapes, grapes, grapes. This is what I do.  And its so awesome.  My 'crush' team is so fun; the night shift crew is so fun.  We all do our best to keep good spirits and so far so good.  We are making memories as funny things go wrong every night...tanks over flowing and hoses blowing off lines while pumping grapes and thus grapes fly around everywhere...its quite a crazy place this winery setting.  And many more fun stories to come...we still have three weeks or so or 24/7 action at good ole Dryland's winery, Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand.