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...