Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

Lily's hair got shorter and shorter during the year; she started by donating her pony tail in Minnesota! In Melbourne in January her hair got a lot shorter. Also, check out those freckles! The hair on my head has been getting scarcer for at least 20 years. Every haircut I've gotten in the last fifteen has been shorter than the one before it. For the last ten years I've been giving myself buzz cuts in the mirror, trusting Elise to tell me when I've missed a spot. Every few years the guard on the clippers has gotten smaller. During this time, I've missed barbershops and their casual banter. Elise once gave me a gift certificate to a place where I got a buzz, a beer, plus a hand and face massage but no chatter. I went to a place in our neighborhood and paid $30 for a buzz and a can of hipster beer but I was definitely too old and square to earn a conversation. Besides, even if I took a trim every two weeks (I prefer weekly), that would be an expensive habit....

Probably the southernmost site on our trip: Slope Point, New Zealand Everybody was right: the distances in New Zealand are very deceiving. It takes a really long time to go anywhere. I'd guess our typical travel speed has been 45 miles per hour. One funny thing about this is that the national default speed limit is 100 kph (62 mph), which our navigation displays no matter where we are, including this gravel road. Going 42kph in a 100 zone; out the windshield you can see the gravel and in the nav you can see the curves! Anyway, we left Dunedin mid-morning on Wednesday and took about an hour to reach Balclutha on the motorway. We found a lovely municipal park with a picnic table, a great playground and a weird, small zoo. Then it was on to the Nugget Point Lighthouse, where we enjoyed a short hike hoping to see Penguins (no) but got rewarded with some baby sparrows in their nest (in the blind from which we hoped to spot the penguins!) Hoping to see some Yellow-Eyed Pengu...

About 3,600 miles after leaving Portland, we arrived in Portland. If you don't know the story of the "Portland Penny," a coin toss between Asa Lovejoy (of Boston, Massachusetts) and Francis Pettygrove (of Portland, Maine) gave the win to Pettygrove and his hometown's name to Stumptown. We left Acadia after a lovely long weekend. My final act was to jump into the frigid Atlantic Ocean. On our way out of town, Lily and Henry received their first patch/badge from the National Park Junior Ranger Program. They worked hard for it during our driving tour of the park yesterday and they were very proud to get their just reward. Then down the coast we drove, first to Camden for lunch. I don't know when or where Camden entered our imagination but for as long as I can remember, Camden has personified the Maine of Elise's fantasy. When she dreams of perpetual sweater weather, it's in Camden. When she considers a daily Lobster habit, it's in Camden. I got a ho...