September 1991
THE 1991 GRIMM FAMILY VACATION
When Dorothy's mother told her that she was coming to visit us in Australia, Dorothy thought it would be a good idea for us to show her some of the country. Since Dorothy's mother's name is Adelaide, Dorothy said she had to see the city of Adelaide, which was the jumping off point for the "1991 Grimm family vacation." Dwight spent his summer vacation here, so was lucky enough (?) to share in the excitement. The plan then, was for all five of us to fly to Adelaide, rent a car and drive to Sydney. There, Dwight and Adelaide would leave to return to the U.S.
i Since we have visited a number of these sites before and since I
don't want to bore you with too many details, I will in some cases
summarize our visit to a particular city.
Before I start, I'd like to comment on the perpetual problem that I have trying to find somewhere for my family to eat when we are on the road outside of the U.S. Dorothy doesn't eat Italian, Mexican, or many other spicy or highly flavored foods. Toby will eat Italian and Mexican foods, but nothing else exotic, nor standard beef, or pork dishes. Dwight doesn't like seafood. (Adelaide was no problem - she always found something to eat.) Add to that, Australia has very few "family" type restaurants which have an extensive menu with something for everyone. Also, in the smaller towns, there are usually no fast food restaurants, and if you arrive too late, you may find nothing open. Taking all of that into account, you can imagine all of the problems I face trying to find somewhere to eat each day -I won't bore you with the dramatics.
We left Alice Springs Friday, September 6th. For some reason, Dwight had a business class ticket - typical. Since we'd been to Adelaide before, I had no problem finding the flat (owned by the U.S. govt, which we can rent). That evening we made arrangements with a friend of Toby's to meet us the next day and spend the weekend with us, and Dwight went off to spend the night with some friends. We spent Saturday shopping - Dorothy's main objective was to go into the new department store with a roller coaster on the top floor. The building is a complex containing the department store and shops which surround a court which is as high as the building (6 floors). On the top floor are rides, arcades, a Lego store with an incredible collection of large Lego-build displays (some of which are built with over 100,000 pieces of Lego), and, yes, a small roller coaster that runs over the court.
We also visited Glenelg, a shopping area on the coast, went to a book sale I found advertised in the paper, a flea market (do I have to mention all of the comic shops and book exchanged that we visited on this trip? - No, OK, I will tell you that except for the first evening and the day the boys went skiing that Toby managed to buy some comics every day on the trip). We also went to the Adelaide
*-5%fc^ *-** .Wf * r-
Botanic Gardens, which we had not been in before. I wanted to see the
building with the simulated rain forest containing native, Australian
plants from the Australian rain forests which are also disappearing
along with others in the world. All in all I think Adelaide was
pleased to finally see the city that she had heard about in geography
class many years ago.
We left Adelaide Monday morning and drove northeast through the Barossa valley, an area settled by Germans and now the most famous wine growing area in Australia. I took a back road in order to get to a lookout of the area and it was worth the effort, but in doing so, I missed a picturesque town with a lot of churches and German influence which we had visited on a previous trip. We stopped at one well-known winery and look at the displays there (including one showing all the different size wine bottles). - A piece of trivia - there are larger sizes of wine bottles, even past the 'magnum.' Some of the names are: jeroboam, rehoboam, balthazar, melchior, methuselah, and nebuchadnezzar. I am not kidding, but I don't know if the large sizes are actually used currently.
Leaving the Barossa Valley, we spent two days driving through the Riverland area, much of which follows the Murray River. During those two days we stopped to visit a former classmate of Dwight's, stopped in a town called Monash to see a large intricate playground with all sorts of equipment most of which was more suitable for adults, stopped for the night in Mildura, where we saw the world's longest bar (91 meters - just under 300 feet), and stopped the second night in Echuca, where a friend of mine who lives in Melbourne met us for drinks and dinner. Both Mildura, and Echuca, as well as Swan Hill, which lies between, are all old port towns which used to be used by paddlewheel boats. Some remain to provide rides/tours, but as far as I know, none actually carry freight anymore. The drive through the Riverland was not real exciting, although it was very green from recent rains. We saw lots of sheep, some cattle, some horses, and many sulphur-crested white cockatoos. (I was at least impressed by the birds because we don't see them here - just the gray and pink galahs and black cockatoos).
From Echuca we drove east, eventually over some winding mountainous roads over a fairly high mountain. It was foggy on top, but we were able to get glimpses of a beautiful lush green valley below, where the town of Mt. Beauty lay. A friend of mine, and her daughter both live there and they kindly offered to put us up -Dorothy, Adelaide and myself at Rosemary's, and the kids at her daughter's. I don't know what the elevation of Mt. Beauty is, but it was cold, and within an hours drive up another mountain is the Falls Creek Ski Resort. It is a beautiful area, with many colorful birds, and we finally saw some wild kangaroos. Despite the impression you may have gotten from TV and ads, kangaroos are not bounding all over the place. We have rarely seen kangaroos in the wilds. I believe there are places that you can routinely see them if you are driving at sunset or at night, but they don't move around a lot during the day, and certainly not that much in the Alice area.
The longer we stay here, the harder it is to deal with cold weather, so at least some of us (OK - so I complained a lot on this trip) minded the cold, and living in a house with no central heat was difficult, but we survived. Dorothy and the boys left at 7:45 Thursday morning by bus to go up to the ski area. Dorothy was determined to say she has skied in both hemispheres. On the hour bus ride up the mountain, they saw one field where there were 40 or more kangaroos, and Dwight said he saw a lyrebird just off the road.
They arrived at the ski area about 9 a.m., and left about 5:30. The weather was outstanding with fresh snow and warm sunny weather. The top of the mountain was lovely (Dorothy’s comment). Dwight skied almost the entire time, Toby did not quit until about an hour or so prior to leaving. Dorothy was another story. According to Dwight she almost wiped out the Grimm line. While trying to get on a ski lift, she fell, knocking both boys down, who then got trapped under the chair of the ski lift. The entire line had to be stopped while the boys were extracted. Dorothy finally made it to the top of the slope and managed to get off the lift gracefully. I'm not sure if the description of Dorothy's subsequent actions, qualify as "skiing." She skied, walked, skied, fell, skied, rolled, ran into a fence, etc.. This slope was named the Wombat Ramble, and it sounds like Dorothy tried to emulate the name. The boys were nice enough to help their mother (taking shifts for the hour it took her to descend one slope) before going off to ski in other areas. Toby tried one that he soon found too steep and had to walk back up, Dwight took one slope that led him to another area from which he couldn't figure out how to get back to check on Dorothy. He eventually caught up with her three hours later. After Dorothy (completed?) her one run she spent most of the rest of the day in a shelter watching the boys' tennis shoes (there were no lockers). She did try skiing along a road for awhile (I did not tell her to go play in the traffic), and encountered an interesting elderly bush walker. They returned to town exhausted, but in good spirits (except that Toby had a headache probably due to the sun glare and not due to the lack of his daily comic input).
While they were skiing, Rosemary, Adelaide and I toured the valley and drove part of the way up the mountain to have lunch at a small village. It was a beautiful day and fantastic scenery (especially for those of us who live in the dry outback).
The next day (Friday) we journeyed on to Canberra. By coincidence, the motel I had booked was beside a golf course and also right beside the motel where Toby had stayed while in Canberra for a bowling tournament. Dwight managed to the play the 'back nine' (which actually consisted of ten holes! of the golf course - the first golf course other that Alice Springs on which he has ever played. On Saturday, Dorothy, Adelaide, and our friend Ronnie, who lives in Canberra and works in the office of one of the government Ministers, went to the National Art Gallery. Meanwhile, the boys and I went to the National Science and Technology Center which is one of those new marvelous 'hands-on' museums. We spent three hours trying many of the 120 interactive exhibits.
3
1 f !• t
On Sunday, Dorothy, Adelaide and I drove to the Tidbinbulla tracking facility about 25 miles south of Canberra. This station is part of the worldwide Deep Space Network and was involved with Voyager during its tour of the outer planets. I was impressed by the large dish (230 feet) they have there and also a smaller dish which had been moved from a nearby facility and which had been the receiving antenna which intercepted Neil Armstrong's words when he stepped on the moon.
Meanwhile, we had dropped off the boys at Ronnie's and she took them to the National Aquarium where they took an hour and a half course in fly-fishing. They thought that was pretty neat (even during some showers). Afterward they were able to fish in the stocked pond there, but the fish are older and wiser (having probably been caught numerous times). The instructor said newer, dumber fish were due the following week. Since they were still fishing when we returned to Tidbinbulla, we picked up Ronnie and visited the National Film and Sound Archives. It was OK, but would mean more to an Australian. We then went to the new Parliament House and Ronnie got us passes to get into the non-public areas. We sat in on talks by tour guides in the House of Representatives and the Senate and then took the elevator to the roof. The most unusual feature of this building is that the roof over the central portion slopes down to ground level and is covered in lush green grass (as the guide said, probably the best cared for lawn in Australia).
The only other items of interest was a flower festival at a park on the lake which basically cuts Canberra in half, a drive through the area with the majority of the embassies, and the Lodge (the prime minister's residence) and a drive up to and elevator to the top of the Telecom (the Australian version of AT&T) tower on a hill overlooking Canberra, which provides some great views of the city and surrounding area. We also visited the bowling alley where Toby had participated in the Australian National Junior Ten-Pin Bowling Championships.
Finally it was on to Sydney and traffic that caused me great distress. Fortunately, we stayed at a motel in Kings Cross which allows easy access to the subway and hence most of the town - so I didn't have to drive for several days. Kings Cross is a very interesting place with lots of activity, numerous restaurants, and a real cross section of humanity, including strip shows and prostitutes. We have always stayed in the Cross when we are in Sydney, but I was a bit apprehensive about staying there with Dorothy's mother. But Dorothy said since her mother was used to New York, she was sure that the Cross wouldn't phase her. The boys were introduced to this type of environment early (at 5 and 10, respectively, when we stayed in Pig Alle in Paris in 1981 on our way to Australia the first time).
Dorothy and her mother did quite a bit on their own - touring the Opera House (where I joined them one day to see a play), going to the National Art Gallery (Dwight joined them to see a collection of (missing from transcript)
Our last day in Sydney we drove to several flea markets close to the motel, then to a comic shop out in one of the*western suburbs, then on to a giant Sunday market, stopped on the way back to the motel for one last meal at one of the Sizzler (same as in the U.S.) restaurants. I took a long detour back to the motel so I wouldn't have to go through city driving again.
For a change, there was no trauma getting to the airport, dropping off the rental car and having plenty of time to make the plane. The trip was uneventful and we arrived in Alice to an overcast sky and later even some thunder and a bit of rain. All was well at my house - our friend Chris had survived with the animals, and vice versa.
Dwight hopes to get a summer job in the U.S. next year. If so, this really may have been the last of the famous Grimm family trips. Only time will tell. There is a chance (although Dorothy is threatening me not to participate) that three of us will drive across the country in January to drop my Buick off with Dwight. So stayed tuned . . .
Monday, March 26, 2012
June 1991: Alice Springs
GRIMMS' STAY IN AUSTRALIA EXTENDED
OUTBACK REPORTS TO CONTINUE
Yes folks, my request for a new tour has formally been approved. It only took six months (your tax dollars are at work creating many layers of bureaucracy through which paperwork must pass). So, unless you specifically ask to be taken off of distribution, you will continue to receive these reports from time to time (hopefully not before you have finished reading the previous one)
The government pays for the whole family to come home to the U.S.for 60 days between tours (called a turnaround). I had planned to take the trip in June-July while Toby had a month's break from school. However, since it took so long to get approval, I'm going to ask if we can now put it off until December-January.
I'll pick up the Grimm adventures prior to the trip to Perth that Dorothy and I took in March. (If you did not receive my Perth trip report copies are still available - please let us know how many copies you'd like.)
Just before our trip, Dorothy went on a promotional trip to Ayers Rock. The invitation went to the paper, and apparently no one else wanted it because Dorothy ended up with it. Until recently only Ansett Airlines had the route from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock; but with deregulation of the airlines, Australian Airlines just began covering the route as well. This has caused problems at the Ayers Rock airport since both airlines make the flight at approximately the same time (don't ask me why) and the airport had problems handling both aircraft at the same time.
Dorothy enjoyed her stay at the Rock - since this was a promotional flight (including the CEO of Australian Airlines), the transportation, accommodations and food were all paid for. She did not climb the Rock, but took advantage of the newest tourist attraction - a ride on a Harley Davidson (pictures are available). She also went on a sunset flight over the Rock and the Olgas (a formation of about 40 rocks, at least one of which is 1800 feet high - higher than Ayers Rock - but much smaller around). She was not impressed, however, by the fact that the two small planes carrying the members of the group were flying almost wingtip-to-wingtip at one point. You would think these tour operators would have learned their lesson when similar fooling around by balloon pilots two years ago ended in a disaster killing 13 people.
The group came back to Alice Springs on a bus and then the next day were invited to take hot air balloon rides. So Dorothy got her second free balloon ride. Since there was little wind the pilot took it up to 7000 feet looking for some wind to move them. Prior to the ascent Dorothy took some spectacular photos of a bush sunrise (thanks to some rare clouds). We had the picture blown up into a good sized print - more about that later.
I won't begin to attempt to explain all of the deficiencies of the newspaper staff. However, with no experience, I believe I could do a better job of running it. Anyway, for their own reasons, the management decided not to run the article Dorothy had written about her trip to Ayers Rock. You'd think after accepting the invitation they would have felt obligated to give the Airlines some free publicity. Dorothy was a bit upset, to put it mildly. She found a way to subtly strike back. Every year the newspaper sponsors an art competition - the Advocate Art Award. Since the winner is by popular vote even Advocate employees may enter. Dorothy had two entries. She got her bush sunrise framed and entered it with a price tag of $150 (every item has to be available for sale). Someone bought it much to her amazement and delight. The other exhibit elicited a lot of comments, although, unfortunately, it did not win. She had a lot of photos she'd taken on the trip to the Rock and asked me if I had any ideas about how to display them. After some thought, I suggested getting an old suitcase and taping them all over it. As an afterthought I said maybe the suitcase could be open and have things in it which she would have taken along.
The first order of business was to acquire a suitable suitcase. Sure enough, at a lawn sale one morning we found an old beat-up suitcase - priced at $2. I offered the lady $1 and although she parted with it, she gave me a detailed account of where all it had been and walked to the car with us, as if she couldn't let it go. We put empty film canisters, a camera case, a flynet (outback flies are plentiful and persistent), a hat, sweatshirt, sneakers, and all the promotional material she picked up on the trip. The, we taped photos all over it. Unfortunately, the editor of the newspaper didn't show up - he had more important things to do than show up to an event which the newspaper was sponsoring. But many of the staff members were there and thought it was a riot (understanding the joke). They put on a real show standing around it laughing and finally enticed Dorothy into putting on some of the gear for photos. The Advocate photographer took many photos (copies are available). I don't know if the Editor ever got the message or not but it doesn't matter - he's been replaced by a new editor. The new guy has assured Dorothy she can continue to cover community arts.
Recently Dorothy rode with a teacher who makes home visits to kids on stations that don't come into town for school. The mother turned out to be the daughter of an American who had once been chief of our facility. The lady had grown up in Fairfax County - not far from where Dorothy had grown up, so they had a nice chat.
On to Toby - He's still heavily into comics and ten-pin bowling. He tried out for the Northern Territory ten-pin team for the National Titles in Canberra in July. (To digress - for those of you who came in late: Australia is about the same size as the continental U.S. but only has six states [Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, West Australia and Tasmania] and two territories [Northern Territory and the Australian Capital
Territory, similar to Washington D.C.].)
Toby didn't get selected for the team but is an alternate so he is training with the team. This includes: conditioning (physical training), lessons, lectures, and even a trip to Darwin to train with the Darwin members of the team. Most of the airfare for the 1000-mile flight was paid for by the N.T. government. I think it's nice the kids got to go to Darwin, but it irritates me that the N.T. govt, seems of have plenty of money to sponsor sporting events and subsidize some 5-star hotels at the same time it is closing schools, cutting teacher positions and other "non-essentials."
Toby enjoyed his trip to Darwin, especially when they took the kids to a Mall to get the team uniforms and by coincidence a comic shop was in the same mall. Toby added a few to his collection.
Although he didn't make the team, I told Toby he could go to the National Titles and compete on his own. It'll be a busy time. Dwight arrives for his summer vacation June 26th, the same day Toby leaves for Canberra. Then Dorothy's mother is coming for a visit, arriving in Alice Springs August 28th. We'll all probably go down south for her to do some sightseeing and put her and Dwight on the plane back to the U.S. sometime in September.
Dwight is doing OK, although he had a mishap several weeks ago. Someone hit him in the eye with a water balloon and the doctors were concerned enough to put him in the hospital for five days. The eye seems to be OK. He finishes class June 14th and will leave California to come here. However, he's taking a slight detour. A friend of his and the friend's family were going to come to Australia this summer and Dwight was going to show them around. However, they decided it was too far so are going to rent a condominium in Hawaii for 10 days and have invited Dwight to come stay with them. So it won't cost him much to stay. Some people have all the luck.
As for me, I'm just my old normal conservative self. I don't understand why Toby calls me weird (doesn't everyone run up and down the fenceline so his dog - on the other side - can chase him?). The school Toby goes to has boarding students (kids whose parents live on stations or in small towns). The last couple of long weekends Toby has invited a boarder for the weekend. The first time he did this he asked me to please act normal. I may have been able to _ maintain some sense of decorum but my friend Pat Elvins, local * artist and eccentric, chose that evening to come visit and our normalcy broke down. Pat is a vegetarian, lives in a trailer with two cats and no running water, and works at a thrift shop - all of this despite the fact she is a good artist. I always give her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (what else do you feed a vegetarian when you're having a ham sandwich?). Pat was driving a different car - her previous car had been stolen by some Aborigines who then totaled it - the car was not insured. On her way home that night the headlights in her current car went out so she returned to spend the night.
5
On one hand Toby says I'm weird - on the other boring. Recently he commented on the excitement in the house: "Wow, how exciting, Dad. You spend your time working on the stamp collection, cataloging your books (which I recently completed - about 1000 currently) and for real excitement sorting refund trash for Mum."
He's right — that's about it except for our weekly lawn sale circuit. The Americans brought the idea of lawn sales to town and now there are from about 10 to almost 30 most Saturday mornings. They start between 7 and 8 and you might as well not go after 9:30 -all the good stuff is gone. We have taken a number of people with us but they can't keep up our pace. In order to get to all of them in the shortest possible time we move quickly through - hitting all of them in 1-2 hours. So what do we buy - most of the 1000 books and a lot of Toby's comics. (My prize book was written by Henry Stanley, who found Livingston, of African myths and printed in 1893, for which I paid 5 cents). I have also bought three wooden shaft Australian-made golf clubs in the original bag ($10), two 1943 insulators used on the Alice Springs telegraph line (.50 each), old pieces of china I find interesting (.20-$l), the 1987 Australian stamp collection worth $50 - for $10, a few antique bottles, and a wind-up tin train made in Great Britain (complete with track and buildings) for $5. We found a bowling ball bag recently that holds two bowling balls (I didn't realize until recently that ten-pin bowlers use different types of bowling balls - Toby has two and was carrying them in individual bags). There was a bowling ball in the bag and I told the guy selling it, whom I knew, that I only wanted the bag. He said the ball went with the bag, so at a later lawn sale I dropped off the ball with another guy I knew who said he'd try and sell it for me. - Although we may go for weeks without finding anything, it's fun seeing the different yards and seeing people we know. (Dorothy picks up tidbits of information related to town events along the way.)
Well, I guess that is enough to bore you with for now so I'll close. I'm sure I'll have enough information for another report after the events of June-Sep. Stay tuned...
OUTBACK REPORTS TO CONTINUE
Yes folks, my request for a new tour has formally been approved. It only took six months (your tax dollars are at work creating many layers of bureaucracy through which paperwork must pass). So, unless you specifically ask to be taken off of distribution, you will continue to receive these reports from time to time (hopefully not before you have finished reading the previous one)
The government pays for the whole family to come home to the U.S.for 60 days between tours (called a turnaround). I had planned to take the trip in June-July while Toby had a month's break from school. However, since it took so long to get approval, I'm going to ask if we can now put it off until December-January.
I'll pick up the Grimm adventures prior to the trip to Perth that Dorothy and I took in March. (If you did not receive my Perth trip report copies are still available - please let us know how many copies you'd like.)
Just before our trip, Dorothy went on a promotional trip to Ayers Rock. The invitation went to the paper, and apparently no one else wanted it because Dorothy ended up with it. Until recently only Ansett Airlines had the route from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock; but with deregulation of the airlines, Australian Airlines just began covering the route as well. This has caused problems at the Ayers Rock airport since both airlines make the flight at approximately the same time (don't ask me why) and the airport had problems handling both aircraft at the same time.
Dorothy enjoyed her stay at the Rock - since this was a promotional flight (including the CEO of Australian Airlines), the transportation, accommodations and food were all paid for. She did not climb the Rock, but took advantage of the newest tourist attraction - a ride on a Harley Davidson (pictures are available). She also went on a sunset flight over the Rock and the Olgas (a formation of about 40 rocks, at least one of which is 1800 feet high - higher than Ayers Rock - but much smaller around). She was not impressed, however, by the fact that the two small planes carrying the members of the group were flying almost wingtip-to-wingtip at one point. You would think these tour operators would have learned their lesson when similar fooling around by balloon pilots two years ago ended in a disaster killing 13 people.
The group came back to Alice Springs on a bus and then the next day were invited to take hot air balloon rides. So Dorothy got her second free balloon ride. Since there was little wind the pilot took it up to 7000 feet looking for some wind to move them. Prior to the ascent Dorothy took some spectacular photos of a bush sunrise (thanks to some rare clouds). We had the picture blown up into a good sized print - more about that later.
I won't begin to attempt to explain all of the deficiencies of the newspaper staff. However, with no experience, I believe I could do a better job of running it. Anyway, for their own reasons, the management decided not to run the article Dorothy had written about her trip to Ayers Rock. You'd think after accepting the invitation they would have felt obligated to give the Airlines some free publicity. Dorothy was a bit upset, to put it mildly. She found a way to subtly strike back. Every year the newspaper sponsors an art competition - the Advocate Art Award. Since the winner is by popular vote even Advocate employees may enter. Dorothy had two entries. She got her bush sunrise framed and entered it with a price tag of $150 (every item has to be available for sale). Someone bought it much to her amazement and delight. The other exhibit elicited a lot of comments, although, unfortunately, it did not win. She had a lot of photos she'd taken on the trip to the Rock and asked me if I had any ideas about how to display them. After some thought, I suggested getting an old suitcase and taping them all over it. As an afterthought I said maybe the suitcase could be open and have things in it which she would have taken along.
The first order of business was to acquire a suitable suitcase. Sure enough, at a lawn sale one morning we found an old beat-up suitcase - priced at $2. I offered the lady $1 and although she parted with it, she gave me a detailed account of where all it had been and walked to the car with us, as if she couldn't let it go. We put empty film canisters, a camera case, a flynet (outback flies are plentiful and persistent), a hat, sweatshirt, sneakers, and all the promotional material she picked up on the trip. The, we taped photos all over it. Unfortunately, the editor of the newspaper didn't show up - he had more important things to do than show up to an event which the newspaper was sponsoring. But many of the staff members were there and thought it was a riot (understanding the joke). They put on a real show standing around it laughing and finally enticed Dorothy into putting on some of the gear for photos. The Advocate photographer took many photos (copies are available). I don't know if the Editor ever got the message or not but it doesn't matter - he's been replaced by a new editor. The new guy has assured Dorothy she can continue to cover community arts.
Recently Dorothy rode with a teacher who makes home visits to kids on stations that don't come into town for school. The mother turned out to be the daughter of an American who had once been chief of our facility. The lady had grown up in Fairfax County - not far from where Dorothy had grown up, so they had a nice chat.
On to Toby - He's still heavily into comics and ten-pin bowling. He tried out for the Northern Territory ten-pin team for the National Titles in Canberra in July. (To digress - for those of you who came in late: Australia is about the same size as the continental U.S. but only has six states [Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, West Australia and Tasmania] and two territories [Northern Territory and the Australian Capital
Territory, similar to Washington D.C.].)
Toby didn't get selected for the team but is an alternate so he is training with the team. This includes: conditioning (physical training), lessons, lectures, and even a trip to Darwin to train with the Darwin members of the team. Most of the airfare for the 1000-mile flight was paid for by the N.T. government. I think it's nice the kids got to go to Darwin, but it irritates me that the N.T. govt, seems of have plenty of money to sponsor sporting events and subsidize some 5-star hotels at the same time it is closing schools, cutting teacher positions and other "non-essentials."
Toby enjoyed his trip to Darwin, especially when they took the kids to a Mall to get the team uniforms and by coincidence a comic shop was in the same mall. Toby added a few to his collection.
Although he didn't make the team, I told Toby he could go to the National Titles and compete on his own. It'll be a busy time. Dwight arrives for his summer vacation June 26th, the same day Toby leaves for Canberra. Then Dorothy's mother is coming for a visit, arriving in Alice Springs August 28th. We'll all probably go down south for her to do some sightseeing and put her and Dwight on the plane back to the U.S. sometime in September.
Dwight is doing OK, although he had a mishap several weeks ago. Someone hit him in the eye with a water balloon and the doctors were concerned enough to put him in the hospital for five days. The eye seems to be OK. He finishes class June 14th and will leave California to come here. However, he's taking a slight detour. A friend of his and the friend's family were going to come to Australia this summer and Dwight was going to show them around. However, they decided it was too far so are going to rent a condominium in Hawaii for 10 days and have invited Dwight to come stay with them. So it won't cost him much to stay. Some people have all the luck.
As for me, I'm just my old normal conservative self. I don't understand why Toby calls me weird (doesn't everyone run up and down the fenceline so his dog - on the other side - can chase him?). The school Toby goes to has boarding students (kids whose parents live on stations or in small towns). The last couple of long weekends Toby has invited a boarder for the weekend. The first time he did this he asked me to please act normal. I may have been able to _ maintain some sense of decorum but my friend Pat Elvins, local * artist and eccentric, chose that evening to come visit and our normalcy broke down. Pat is a vegetarian, lives in a trailer with two cats and no running water, and works at a thrift shop - all of this despite the fact she is a good artist. I always give her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (what else do you feed a vegetarian when you're having a ham sandwich?). Pat was driving a different car - her previous car had been stolen by some Aborigines who then totaled it - the car was not insured. On her way home that night the headlights in her current car went out so she returned to spend the night.
5
On one hand Toby says I'm weird - on the other boring. Recently he commented on the excitement in the house: "Wow, how exciting, Dad. You spend your time working on the stamp collection, cataloging your books (which I recently completed - about 1000 currently) and for real excitement sorting refund trash for Mum."
He's right — that's about it except for our weekly lawn sale circuit. The Americans brought the idea of lawn sales to town and now there are from about 10 to almost 30 most Saturday mornings. They start between 7 and 8 and you might as well not go after 9:30 -all the good stuff is gone. We have taken a number of people with us but they can't keep up our pace. In order to get to all of them in the shortest possible time we move quickly through - hitting all of them in 1-2 hours. So what do we buy - most of the 1000 books and a lot of Toby's comics. (My prize book was written by Henry Stanley, who found Livingston, of African myths and printed in 1893, for which I paid 5 cents). I have also bought three wooden shaft Australian-made golf clubs in the original bag ($10), two 1943 insulators used on the Alice Springs telegraph line (.50 each), old pieces of china I find interesting (.20-$l), the 1987 Australian stamp collection worth $50 - for $10, a few antique bottles, and a wind-up tin train made in Great Britain (complete with track and buildings) for $5. We found a bowling ball bag recently that holds two bowling balls (I didn't realize until recently that ten-pin bowlers use different types of bowling balls - Toby has two and was carrying them in individual bags). There was a bowling ball in the bag and I told the guy selling it, whom I knew, that I only wanted the bag. He said the ball went with the bag, so at a later lawn sale I dropped off the ball with another guy I knew who said he'd try and sell it for me. - Although we may go for weeks without finding anything, it's fun seeing the different yards and seeing people we know. (Dorothy picks up tidbits of information related to town events along the way.)
Well, I guess that is enough to bore you with for now so I'll close. I'm sure I'll have enough information for another report after the events of June-Sep. Stay tuned...
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