In 2004 Thad signed up to attend a workshop for AP history teachers, as he was getting ready to tackle a new set of courses at Liberty Charter School in Nampa, Idaho. As a part of his new class load, he was going to get the opportunity to teach AP history to juniors and seniors, but part of the preparation for that was to get the proper certification from the Advanced Placement company. His class was held in North Carolina at Wake Forest. Since I was on summer break at the time, I decided to go along for a vacation while he was in class, but not wanting to be solo on my daily explorations, we invited my parents to go with us. After a week of him going to school all day and us roaming the surrounding areas, we headed out as a group for a few more days of travel. It was in those wanderings that I made a fateful $8 purchase: a National Parks passport. This small impulse buy would become the center of our US travels from them onwards.

Because of that little spiral-bound blue book, we’ve taken scenic detours to National Park sites that are well-off the beaten path. Sometimes these are planned adventures and sometimes they are because one of us spotted the tell-tale brown on a road sign that is the signal that a National Park area is nearby. Some of these places are close to main cities and attractions, but as often as not, they are down less-traveled roads and possibly through Children-of-the-Corn-esque fields.

Our recent road trip in New Zealand brought back the memories of these American countryside jaunts when Thad decided that we were going to find the place with the longest name. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (which translates roughly as “The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who traveled about, played his nose flute to his loved one”) is registered with the Guinness Book of World Records as such, with a moniker weighing in at eighty-five letters  and it sounded like just our kind of adventure. (There are variations on the name and length, some reaching over 100 letters, but this is the most commonly seen/used of them.)  After pulling out a couple of maps and not getting much in the way of directions and a GPS that had never heard of the location, we set off to see what we could find, just us, a book and a plan. As this place is not much more than a hill in the middle of nowhere, it wasn’t a surprise that little could be found about how to get there, but how hard could it be? New Zealand isn’t that big, right?

Luckily, our Lonely Planet had some vague directions, based mostly on turning right at a large field with a small road sign in front of it, so we set the GPS for what we thought was the closest town and then hoped for signs from there.

There were no signs.

After getting extremely lost and turned around multiple times, we literally came to the end of the road in New Zealand. We didn’t actually think much of it when our paved road turned to dirt, as that happened several times in the previous days as we crisscrossed the north and south islands. But, at one point, the road just ended. No pavement. No dirt. Just a field with no access.

Backtracking ensued and eventually we came to a fork in the road and a gut instinct that said to take that right turn, so right we went. Twenty more kilometers down the road (paved this time!) we would have passed it had we blinked! In the middle of the countryside stands a LONG skinny sign with the name of the hill. Behind it? An unassuming bump in the landscape.

It took an entire day to find, but it was an excursion well-worth the (slight) frustration and crazy twists and turns. Not many folks would have stuck with the search, but we were rewarded with five minutes of glory and the distinction of having set foot on the place certified to have the longest name in the world! Luckily, my years as a passenger in the quest for National Parks passport stamps have taught me that such journeys are often rewarded in the end, a lesson that came in handy as we made our way through the sheep-dotted countryside in the Land of the Kiwis.

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Growing up, we weren’t allowed inside pets. We had all sorts of critters, but that is just what happens when you live in the country. At various points, we had all the fixings of a farm, but never all in one moment. We had chickens and a mean ol’ rooster who attacked the small children sent in to gather eggs. We had calves that we christened with adorable monikers like Cookies and Cream or Bert and Ernie. (We also ate those same cute little guys when cold weather rolled in. They were fun “pets” in the summer and tasty tacos in the winter.) We had pheasants and rabbits and dogs and of course a smattering of slightly feral cats. Then came the llamas and a pygmy goat we babysat for a short time. But, for the majority of my childhood, all pets were outdoor pets. They had cozy stalls filled with warm straw and houses crammed with blankets and heaters, so were not lacking when it came to comfort, but none of them got to spend their evenings with the humans in the big house. That is, until my sister and I wheedled and begged (and probably annoyed) my parents to the point where they gave in. We would each be allowed to have an “inside” pet. She went with parakeets, getting a blue and a yellow budgie to add to our bedroom décor and I went with a hamster, thinking it was fuzzy and adorable. (These were the first iterations. We each went through several of our chosen pets throughout the years.)

My first hamster, Candy, was a light cream color and loved to fill his (her?) cheeks with pellet food and then spit it out if you got too close. (This turned out to be good preparation for when we got the llamas!) But, more than anything, Candy loved being shoved in his clear plastic wheel and set loose in the house. Luckily, we had very few stairs, as he seemed to always find them instantly and take himself off-roading in his wheel. He’d scurry around the house for hours until he had worn himself out and we’d find his ball tucked in a corner, him asleep, usually with a pile of poo. His adventures literally left him pooped!

Candy (and his successors) are what came to mind a few weeks ago when I was confronted with a human-sized hamster ball. You see, in New Zealand, there is a lovely company called Zorb where one can pay money to be strapped into a gigantic hamster ball and pushed down a rather steep hill. Thad stumbled upon this phenomenon on our first evening in NZ and we quickly decided the home of Zorb-ing would be our destination for the next day.

Hill? Hamster ball? Lots of bungee cords? Why not?!

It is pretty much exactly as it sounds. The workers drive you to the top of the hill (you are barefoot, so walking isn’t a great option) and strap you into a large plastic orb. It is really two soft, blow-up balls, one bungee-ed to the other to create shock absorbers. You get strapped in by the ankles, waist and a chest belt and then you’ve got loops above your head to grab with your hands. As soon as all the buckled are clipped, the worker asks if you are ready, and ready or not, down the hill you go!

Now, I love “dizzy” rides. The Scrambler is my favorite place to be at an amusement park. I can go on that thing again and again and then down a cotton candy and hop right back on. No problem! But, the Zorb gave my belly a run for its money.

Flying down the hill, all I could see was a rotation: green, blue, green, blue, green, blue. Grass, sky, grass, sky, grass, sky.

About half way down I began to silently pray that the cookie and apple juice I had for breakfast would remain in my stomach, which felt like it was making two rotations for each one of my body.  And of course, there was squawking the entire way down. I think it was a series of “aaack”s each time my feet made another trip over my head.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, I slowly and clumsily unhooked by various belts, stood up in the ball, only to crash back down, having lost all sense of direction and any coordination to which I may have previously laid claim. It took a good minute before I was able to squeeze myself out of the opening and zigzag my way away from the hill.

Zorbing was crazy and not cheap, but definitely an experience worth having! I think I would probably do it again, but with much more trepidation, as my tummy now knows what it is in for as I barrel down a hill, head over foot, time and time again. (And I know how poor Candy felt when he hit those few stairs, sending him tumbling in all directions!)