A copy of the email Barry sent to our kids and a few others......A PERFECT DAY !!!! A PERFECT TRIP!!!

We have just completed the most remarkable day that can be imagined on what has been truly a dream trip. We are staying at arguably the best private lodge anywhere - and we have been staying at many in 7 different countries these past 2 and 1/2 months. It is secluded and beautiful almost beyond description. It is as far as you can go in New Zealand and is in the most picturesque place in a country known for picturesque places. We had this great breakfast and then took off in a helicopter across the bay and then over the mountains to the other side. We landed in the adjoining high mountain valley just up from the fiord that we cruised 4 days earlier. We go into this beautiful mountain river with no one to see us and start walking the river fly fishing for mountain trout. You only cast at what you can see. Even though it is a beautiful blue summer day, there is snow still all around us - we are FISHING HIGH IN THE MOUNTAINS. There are waterfalls and snow run off plusvonly the sounds of nature except for the sound of the dreaded helicopter coming to get us at the very end of a perfect day. We leave the fish, the cold mountain river where we drank water directly from the river and climbed back in for a ride back over the mountains and through the high mountain valleys to return to the most stunning site for a lodge that be imagined. We are the only guests tonight at this unbelievable place, where some of the best chefs in this country prepare a 7 course meal outside on the terrace so we an look at the mountain range across the bay (the Remarkables) while we eat a fabulous meal.

It does not get any better. There have been many more meaningful days in my life - my wedding, the birth of Katie, Caroline and Davis and the weddings for Katie and Caroline and many others - but there has never been a single day (in a life that I have been given much more than I deserve) in which I have had more fun or enjoyed more than this one. It is a perfect end to a perfect trip.

Thanks Jerry for allowing this. I wish Sherry was alive to not only thank her but to show her the pictures. You too Don, thanks for working with me on this sabbatical timing - it has been one of the highlights of my life. Thanks, kids, for supporting us while we spent some of your inheritance.

You just cannot experience this without thanking someone. I just wish Mom and Dad were still around.

Sent from my iPad