One Dark Night When We Were All In Bed, Mrs. O'Leary...

I steered our family toward Napier for our next night/day of vacation.  Napier is in the Hawke's Bay region located on the Eastern shore of New Zealand.  I was keen to see this area because it had been leveled by an earthquake in 1931 and rebuilt in classic Deco style that still stands.  I read that it is lit at night with neon and looks beautiful in its glory.  We arrived at dusk and rented a very standard motel room.

Blurry photo of Napier at night.  It's the best I got.

The room housed two sleeping spaces.  One in the main area with a queen size bed and sleeper sofa and another with two twin beds.  There was a generous bathroom with shower and separate whilrpool tub and a small kitchenette in the area that also served as a hall.  It was a newer construction and had a great balcony as well.

We left the boys asleep with my grandmother and went to dinner at the Masonic Hotel just up the road. I had an uneasy feeling.  I worried the entire time we were gone.  I was spooked by the crashing waves (it is too dangerous a beach to swim at and the wave CRASH into the shore LOUDLY). I was spooked by the seals at the National Aquarium moaning in the night.  We kept walking around town after dinner looking for another drink (we sound like alcoholics probably, but we had only had one glass of wine in a wine region we were not familiar with and wanted to try more).  Nothing was open on Friday night at 10pm, I wasn't impressed with the architecture as I had hoped to be (I had imagined it to be all Rand's The Fountainheadesque and it was much more subtle) and I was spooked by the emptyness of the town.

I am not comfortable leaving my boys with anyone.  I was moderately coming to terms with leaving them with one specific sitter in Charlottesville.  A young woman in her mid-twenties who was a responsible, professional, business owner (not in the child care business) who was married but had not begun a family yet.      I would still worry pretty much the entire time that I was away (and I totally trust Cari).  I will leave them with my grandma and not really worry.  That is about where it stops.  JJ has not ever cared for all three boys at one time by himself.

We got back to the hotel and everything was fine.  Everyone was asleep and we fell asleep ourselves too.  Morning came early and I needed to contact the states for work quickly before the business day was over.  My cell was dead and I needed to go to the store before we began our day so I left everyone and headed across this little town to the Pac 'n Save and use the car charger to make my call.

When I returned, I was met at the door by a moderately upset JJ.  My first thought was, this place smells like candles, hmmm.  Ooops!  I had innocently set a bag of supplies on top of the stovetop hob (I made a mental note to make sure the hob was turned off at the wall switch -- everything is on a wall switch here -- so that even if it were turned on at the knob it wouldn't heat up).  At some point in the night Mamaw looked for the light switch for the hall and must have flipped the switch to the hob.  After I left to run my errand and make my call, AJ2 was caught playing with the hob knobs and a FIRE broke out!!

The fire department was called and the alarms went off evacuating the entire motel (which was at capacity).  Thankfully, JJ found the source, put it out before any real damage was done and dealt with the hotel manager etc.  In classic fashion, JJ then made all of us breakfast and we ended up missing our check out by thirty minutes.  It was hilarious!!  The poor manager tried to be passive aggressive with me when I paid but in my classic type-A American way, I stopped her dead in her tracks.  I understand her frustration, but come on, I was having a seriously bad day already!

We finally packed up and headed over to the National Aquarium and to let the boys play at the beach and ride their scooters.  I never got to see the seals, I was tired and getting cranky and we hit the road again with our sites on Wellington as a final destination.