It seems we had too much time on our hands today. We needed to be planning something, it would have been cheaper had we elected to go for a long walk. I mentioned we wanted to be in Rochester for a very special Percussion performance so I got busy booking flights to Rochester while sharing some information about concerts in Rochester with Dottie and Larry (well, Dottie’s name was on the email). Seems there is a Rochester Philharmonic concert that week and Christopher Seaman will be conducting and Jon Nakamatsu will perform the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto #2 in G Major on Thursday. We have flights from Salt Lake City to Rochester on Wednesday the 29th arriving late night so we can recover in time for the concert. We fly back on Sunday to rejoin our coach wherever we have left it.

We had email from Bunny and Alan with whom we have been trying to plan a trip to New Zealand and Australia. They are hot on going on a National Geographic Tour on South Island of NZ. Although the trip looks excellent it is not what we are are really thinking about. We have heard a lot about RVing in those parts, but it seems rather daunting to put it together for ourselves. I remembered that Fantasy Tours (yet another shameless plug) runs an annual 51 day tour of NZ and Australia mostly in rental RVs. As we explored on line it dawned on us that we knew a member of CHAI who represents Fantasy Tours. With just a bit of research we located Marcy’s phone number in an old CHAI roster. That launched a long conversation at the end of which we agreed to take the trip, as soon as they firm up any proposed itinerary changes. Departure is from Los Angeles on March 24, 2016. It is about 30 days in NZ and the 21 days along the East coast of Australia. There is a 12 day extension to the Outback, still in RVs and then a stopover in Fiji on the way back to LA. We are psyched.

Our passports are expiring in January so we are applying for renewals for our travels. They will have plenty of stamps before we get passed the middle of 2016.