Oh, Great. Poison Oak.

This morning in my shower I noticed a pimple-like sore on my wrist. "Hmm, strange place for a pimple," I thought. "Maybe I'll steam it out with a hot washcloth." Then as I was toweling off I noticed several small pimples on my opposite wrist. That's when it clicked: these aren't pimples, they're poison oak.

My last obvious chance for exposure to poison oak was 8 days ago, hiking at Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. Everything's green and growing right now, so it makes sense that poison oak would be in the mix. But 8 days for incubation seems too long. Standard is 24-72 hours for a rash to appear. As someone who's always been allergic I'd definitely expect to have an obvious breakout 2-3 days after exposure. Maybe I got it somewhere else, late last week.

Well, regardless of where/when it comes from, I've already treated the rash with cortisone cream. Hawk and I are both allergic so we keep a couple tubes handy in our medicine drawer. Yes, it's a very full medicine drawer, with all those remedies for cold symptoms— which I've only just now been able to taper off gobbling down, here on Day 17 of Cold #2.

New Zealand!

Hawk and I have been discussing where to go on an April trip for months. Originally it was going to be a February trip, but by early January we hadn't planned anything and our work schedules were looking like they'd be too busy, so we vaguely pushed it out from February to April. When Hawk found out in late January that her position at work is being eliminated and negotiated a last day of April 5, we started talking about taking a trip immediately after her end date as time off wouldn't be a challenge for her. And it would be a nice break before she starts any new job. But then we kicked that can down the road for another month, not bothering to plan anything. Until today.

NEW ZEALAND!

We're going to New Zealand. We booked the flights this afternoon. We're going for two weeks. We don't have anything else about the trip planned yet. We'll figure that out in the coming few weeks.

New Zealand!

How did we pick New Zealand? It's kind of like how we picked Australia in November for our December trip. We knew we wanted to go on a special vacation but we'd been kicking the can down the road for months on deciding where. We started with the idea of something tropical, particularly Samoa and Fiji— an idea we'd postponed from the December trip until this year. Then, while we were looking at how to piece together a South Pacific islands trip today, Hawk noted that with my upcoming club trip we'll likely be going somewhere tropical in May. Taking beach-y trips two months in a row would be too much of the same thing, we agreed. Then Hawk found flights on good points rates to Australia and New Zealand. Well, even though we've seen only a bit of Australia and would go somewhere else this trip, New Zealand is totally new to us.

New Zealand!