Opononi, New Zealand November 2004

This is one of my favorite pictures and just perfect for my refrigerator door. This view from a lookout in New Zealand was amazing, but this picture actually reminds me of a runaway hubcap! A year after I graduated from college I moved to New Zealand to work. In this extremely laid back country everything just seemed to fall into place. I found a job at an architecture firm in Auckland during an interview for a different job. Then I found a flat the day before I needed to start looking for one when I was talking to a friend of a friend. My year in Auckland was filled with evenings with friends, Bodycombat (the greatest kickboxing class in the world) at Les Mills, Link bus rides and many road trips.

Road trips were full of incredible scenery like this photo that Kari took in Opononi as we explored New Zealand north of Auckland. We drove up to an overlook and just stood there taking in this view. After we got back in the car and I started to drive away, I slammed on the breaks and yelled at Kari to grab our hubcap. All of a sudden I noticed one of our hubcaps was off and rolling away from us. Kari looked at me as if I was completely crazy (because how often does someone yell something like that at you?) but luckily she was quick enough to jump out of the car and run after our hubcap before it got away.