Sometimes the most elementary of questions doesn’t get asked because the answer is simply assumed.

That wasn’t the case about six years ago now when I visited my son Jack and his family in Vietnam. I knew Ho Chi Minh is a huge city, and finding him might be a challenge.

“Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll meet you at the airport,” he assured. I questioned what would happen if my flight was delayed or even canceled. How would I contact him?

“Trust me, it will work out,” he said.

I arrived at midnight and the place was bustling like Warwick Mall the week before Christmas. It was crazy. Like cattle, we were driven into gates that took us through customs and delivered us to the front of the terminal, where a sea of people waited for arriving flights. Jack was right – I had no trouble finding him and his family. He stood a foot and a half above everyone else.

So this time when I joined him in New Zealand, the question of connecting at the airport never came up. He had my itinerary and knew when my flight would land in Queenstown on the South Island. By comparison, Queenstown is tame. I doubt if the runway is longer than 5,000 feet. The terminal doesn’t have a jet gate, and you step out of the airplane cabin onto a set of stairs to be greeted by a spectacular view of cloud-draped mountains and a blue lake.

This was going to be easy, I thought.

I scanned the faces of those in the terminal – no Jack, Jen or their children, Lucy and Eddie.

I proceeded to the baggage claim pondering my course of action. Somewhere in my bag I had Jack’s travel agent’s name and number. They, at least, could tell me where the family had been staying and where they would be that night. Assuming the terminal had WiFi, I could email him and hope he would check it. I could email Carol and see if she could retrieve the Skype number he had last used to call us.

My bag was easy enough to find. Ours was the only flight. The terminal cleaned out quickly and I circled back into the main part of the building just in case. No Jack. Oh well, I thought, I shouldn’t miss out on the view and the sunshine, and headed out the terminal to what seemed to be a good spot to see and to be seen.

“Peppy, Peppy,” came the squeals as two kids in shorts and blue fleeces raced toward me. Lucy and Eddie hugged me around the legs. Jack soon appeared from the direction of the rental car lot.

“Don’t worry,” should be the family motto.

In some respects, New Zealand is a small place. Indeed, it is remote even for Jack and his family, and unless you’re prepared to spend a lot of time in an airplane you may not want to put it on the list of places you want to visit. The country has a population of four million, not counting the sheep that supposedly outnumber people nine to one. Distances between major towns where you might get half a dozen roundabouts – you don’t see many traffic lights except in Auckland – are a two- to three-hour drive. The feeling is that pretty much everybody knows everybody, and the Kiwis take pride in the place and love showing it off.

I got a taste of that at the L.A. airport when seeking to find the terminal – L.A. has multiple terminals – to catch my Air New Zealand flight. That’s where I met Mike, an American turned New Zealander who has lived in the country for the past decade. We teamed up for the hike to the International Terminal, preferring to stretch our legs as we both had already spent the good part of a day in an airplane.

It was a bit risky. Mike knew the way, cutting through parking garages and crossing four lanes of traffic to get yelled at by a cop on a motorcycle for not crossing at the crosswalk.

“We’ll be gone by the time he circles back,” he promised.

Mike owns and operates a winery on the South Island, and when he heard I would be in the area extended an invitation to visit. He suggested bringing the whole family, seeing the place and spending the night.

“We love showing off the place,” he said.

“How am I going to find you?”

“An hour north of Queenstown, Pyramid Valley,” he said. That was it – Mike at Pyramid Valley, no family name, no phone number or address.

I told Jack of the invitation, but as it turned out we didn’t get to Pyramid Valley.

The plan was to drive to Wanaka, but before starting off they would give me a mini-tour of Queenstown. The place seemed to be the hub for extreme sports – three hang-gliders looped lazily down from a mountaintop near the center of town. A colorful parachute, with someone dangling, cruised the lake. We passed people in hiking gear, climbing ropes dangling from their knapsacks. Mountain bikers were plentiful, as were signs advertising bungee jumping and skydiving.

Everyone looked fit and tanned. We left town and headed toward Wanaka, usually a drive of 90 minutes through the hills with overlooks of the valley before descending into another valley giving on a wide plain. We passed a couple of hitchhikers, which is a commonly acceptable form of transportation in New Zealand.

We were in no rush, and Jen had plans for us to stop at the second oldest pub in the country, Cardona Hotel. As there was only scrub lands and no signs of human habitation, I wondered why on earth a pub would be in these parts. Soon enough, we arrived at a single-story building that could have been out of a western movie set, only a 1930s Chevy, paint faded and carrying a layer of dust, was parked outside. A crackling fire greeted us inside as well as a friendly gent – I suspect the owner – who explained that in the 1800s, after the discovery of gold, there was a community of 5,000 miners. We ordered and waited at picnic tables in somewhat of a courtyard on the backside of the bar. The kids spotted a playground and were gone. The birds spotted us and arrived. Sparrows hopped across the table inches from our hands and perched in the branches overhead.

“Look at that,” exclaimed Jen, holding up her hand with a neat cylindrical dropping. “I guess I’m in for some good luck.”

We laughed and waved the sparrows off. Then I felt a direct hit on top of my head. What luck.