December 16, 2004 - Aucklan, New Zealand

For the past 4 months Nick and I have been land and air traveling. After receiving an e-mail that my grandmother had has a massive right hemisphere stroke, we flew out the next day. It was not that easy however as once getting off the whale boat where I had been filming underwater adventures of the humpback whales, it was too late to contact a travel agent. Instead we showed up at the airport the next morning, bags in hand, and loaded the DC3 which the crown Prince had recently peurchased for inter island travel. That is another story in its self but needless to say and adventure had begun. Once in Nukulofa, the main city in Tonga, we took a taxi to a travel agent and proceeded to look into travel to the states. Again we were stumped-how long would I be needed? I always told Gram that when she passed on I would take care of Mom-how was I to do this with my lifestyle and it's a bit too late to change that now! So the beginning of the dilemmas had only begun. Lukcily I have 3 brothers stateside but back to the story-So here we were trying to order a ticket from the middle of nowhere with out a clue as to our dates-once told a one way air pass to Florida would cost 2400 usd per person the only other option was an around the world ticket for 1700 usd pp. Now where do we want to go and quickly to decide!! It was a trip in and of itself!. Once decided with what we found out to be the wrong information luckily, we were on the next plane to Florida via New Zealand, LA and N Carolina. As we landed in LA we were told there had been a terrorist attack and subsequent explosion and we could not deplane! Welcome to the good ole USA!! Three hours later as we boarded our plane to North Carolina, we found out it had only been a battery in someones luggage that had exploded!! Off to North Carolina.

Once arriving we found that we were grounded-all flights to Florida are canceled due to a force 5 hurricane sweeping across Florida! Well Gram would want us to have fun if we couldn't get to her so we stayed at the Sheraton, swam and hot tubbed it for two days until we could fly out. Quite the luxury for two that are used to boat life where a cold shower is the norm and hot tubs are a thing of dreams!! Don't feel too sorry for us there ok-we love our life style and what we are exposed to culturally as well as the eye candy we are always privy to but the hot tub was grand!! And Gram was still hanging in there in the hospital although had taken a turn for the worse but it was good for us to have some chill out time before the next part of the adventure. We were not prepared for the emotional as well as physical drain we were going to experience.

Once in Sarasota, Ed, my oldest brother took Nick and I to the hospital. Gram took a look at Nick and cried. Then said where's your brother-tough question but we could not all come back and it was Nicks turn. But she seemed to understand. Then she saw me and immediately asked me to rub her shoulder. It was so tight tears came to my eyes. Later I would find out from her doctor that she was on Oxycodon for the pain-very strong pain meds. Off to the house to see how my mother was doing-not well-between the hurricanes and a bunch of guys in her house she was over the top-seemed to help having me back.
Night vigils.-