we've arrived at our second stop of the trip, my parents' house in dc, and have spent the evening celebrating my mom's birthday and listening to classic records (the monkees, the beatles, the beach boys, jesus christ superstar) on her new record player. from the airport, we drove directly to a crabhouse on the potomac that's clearly intended to welcome visitors from the water rather than from land, as guests have to walk across a busy set of train tracks to get to the restaurant when the parking lot is full (which tonight it was). the crab legs that i ordered were certainly well worth the drive. thanks, mom and dad!

we flew through minneapolis this morning, and though we decided not to hop on the light rail for one last visit of the mall of america (by the way, did you know that there are billboards advertising the mall of america in omaha? that's two states away!), our pilot sure gave us a grand farewell tour of the city. we could see the mall (and, therefore, our old apartment) to our left as we took off, following 35w up past the chain of lakes and directly over the city skyline. we could even clearly make out miller hall and the rest of north central down below us. why would anyone choose to live anywhere but minneapolis?

tomorrow we're planning yet another visit to REI to purchase some remaining essentials. we have a surprisingly long list, especially given how heavy our packs felt as we lugged them around the airport today. weight has been a critical factor in the decision-making process for most of our equipment, but as this is our first real backpacking trip, we know that we're still holding onto unnecessary items because we just don't know better yet. hopefully we'll have shed some packweight by the time we hike the PCT with adam and stacy in a year or so :)

after the shopping trip, we're heading straight to the library to secure a stack of reading materials on wilderness first aid, navigation, and general new zealand information. we're leaving on saturday for a week at a beach house in the outer banks, and somehow it just seems more appealing to read about magnetic north from a hammock by the ocean than it did from our apartment in minneapolis. we're embarrassingly underprepared in some areas, and are giving ourselves a crash course during this last week and a half. i've decided to stop stressing myself out about this, and instead try to maximize the time that we do have.

one more note before i go - i now possess actual new zealand dollars, courtesy of my fantastic brothers! this one, as you can see, is a $5 featuring the late sir edmund hillary (just ahead of peter jackson as the most well-known kiwi?), famous for being the first to summit mt. everest along with sherpa tenzing norgay in 1953. the $20 note displays a picture of queen elizabeth II, and the $10 note shows kate sheppard, who, i just learned, was a prominent figure in the woman's suffrage movement. new zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893, and has a proud social justice history. for those of you who are wondering, as of today, nz$1=us$0.67. it's not a bad exchange rate, but i wouldn't mind if it it dipped back down to the $0.50 rate that we saw in march.

have a wonderful friday!

rachel