The Drive Out

In addition to the fun of moving, the truck started giving me problems... Rather than driving 24 hours to Hobbs by myself, I decided to drive 13 hours to Salt Lake City to meet up with my sister, who was also going to Hobbs. That way I spared some of the wear on my truck. My brother-in-law subsequently agreed to buy the truck from me.

Driving across Nevada I mostly kept myself entertained by taking pictures of signs that showed funny place names. I also forgot to put my iPod somewhere accessible, but lucky for me I caught a bluegrass station broadcasting out of Fallon, NV. That helped pass the 13 hours of driving on I-80.

After arriving in SLC, I did a quick scramble of rearranging stuff in to piles of 'stay in SLC' and 'go to Australia.' At this point Marlene and I have our property strewn all over the world; Canada, New Mexico, Utah, California, and Australia. It's nice to have family to count on for this sort of thing. I feel so selfish sometimes feeling like I'm dumping a bunch of stuff and responsibility on people so I can go off and have fun...

The next day Becci, Laura, Lisa, and I hit the road for NM. We were hoping to make it to Farmington, NM on the first day, then pushing the rest of the way home the next day. When we arrived in Farmington at 2pm, we decided to keep going. We eventually pulled into Hobbs at about 11pm. A day early. It was a nice drive and we listened to Harry Potter books on tape the whole way... too bad for me they were part way through the 7th book, and I have never read a single word of Harry Potter. It kept the girls entertained though.

The Move Out

After a lot of headaches and bad noise dealing with moving out and our landlord's real estate agent I hit the road. Moving was such a pain. What started out with nicely labeled and organized boxes eventually turned into trowing random stuff into the back of the truck and throwing it into the storage unit. Moving back isnt' going to be very much fun....

On top of mount Coot-tha..M

... all covered in treeeeeess
I went for a bike-riiiiiiide
and was gen-rally pleeeeeeaaased!

So the sun made its appearance, and I got air in my tires (which I had to deflate prior to boarding the plane), and loaded up with emergency CO2 cartridges in case of a flat, I headed from home to the nearby Mount Coot-tha. It was a delightful ride, with rolling, but false-flattengly up-hill and then a full-on climb to the summit. At the top were pretty much all of the broadcasting stations in the city: channel 7, channel 9, channel 10, one after the other. A little ways down was the lookout, with a restaurant and snack bar-cafe. I stopped to replenish my resources with a lemonade and a muffin. Don't be fooled by the lemonade, it's more like a lemon-flavoured Italian soda, which I knew to expect, and thoroughly enjoyed. I then made my way back down with a slight detour on a side road to check out the Australian bush, and then headed back through town, on now hilly, but now false-flattengly down-hill roads all the way home. I was quite warm when I arrived, so I followed my mom's perennial advice to "get in the pool"!

In the end it was a lovely day, and despite nearly killing myself twice due to unanticipated traffic coming from the "wrong" direction, I made out quite well! I have also (mostly) gotten over the weirdness and danger of biking on the left side of the road and feel pretty comfortable out there. Another experience to add to the slew of delightful experiences since I arrived here to make my time here tons of fun!

Here comes the sun!

So it's Saturday again and the rain this morning washed everything down and cooled the air a little: I'm actually wearing long sleeves! and socks! But the sun just came out and will hopefully dry everything off so I can go for my long-awaited bike ride. Things are really falling into place with the house in the WC moved out and over with, Joel at his parents in New Mexico and his ticket bought so he arrives next Sunday morning. I'm so excited for him to get here so I don't have to talk to the walls anymore when I get home or talk to myself whenever I discover something else that's cool in Brisbane!

I went onto site this week. Ahhhh, this is why I do this job! I just love excavating rock! In the office I have also been doing some really neat stuff with planning excavation sequencing and initial and final support requirements for caverns with a maximum span of 26 meters. Think about how big that is! So cool! Yeah, all in all, things are really great and Joel's finally getting to have some fun with the family, which he will hopefully give a full update on shortly!

My impression of Queenslanders

Houses that is! The traditional house style here is called the Queenslander. They're built up on stilts or concrete piles to keep them above any flooding and so that the air can circulate underneath them as a way to beat the heat. They're also typically built of wood and have corrugated steel roofs. The houses and many of the roofs are painted lovely colours. Most have verandas with ornate lattice to provide some cooler outdoor living space and help shade the windows to keep the house cooler. Everything here is made with the climate in mind and the houses end up looking really neat! Some of these are along my way to work, which is actually a really nice walk. These types of houses in the inner city go for a lot of money, the smallest ones starting at about $600k! They may be too expensive to buy but they're free to look at and certainly make the city picturesque.

Lazy Sunday at the beach

I took a train and bus up to the surf beach on Bribie island, meaning that I went to the surf side of the island, not that it's a surfing beach, the surf is not big enough. The waves are big enough to play around it, though, and it was super fun. I spent the day reading Omnivore's Dilemma (I will proselytize on that one at a later time), swimming, snoozing and walking on the beach. And I never even got a sunburn! The swim shirt helps: no need to try to put sunscreen on my back by myself! The beach itself was really soft sand and looked to me like it was pretty much endless: lovely!

It was quite warm at the beach, not as hot as Cuba, though, but still very warm for the winter. We're in the middle of a heat wave, and actually went up to 35 degrees yesterday, breaking all sorts of records. Thankfully (for us, not the dry dry bush) the humidity was only 54% so it really didn't feel THAT hot. Doesn't bode well for summer, though, it's supposed to be an El Nino summer so it might be hot hot hot. Things are continuing to fall into place, including the addition of beans for lunch and muesli for breakfast as per tradition, and all I'm missing now is Joel!

Our Apartment

So it's Saturday so I have some time to spend on updating the blog. First and foremost here are pictures of our apartment. It's really nice and very bright, north facing with a full-wall patio door opening onto a balcony that makes the place feel twice as big. The furnishings are also really nice and we pretty much have all we need to live here for a while. All I need now is a husband? Anyone seen one lying around?

So I'm still working out the jet lag thing. I'm not really jet lagged anymore but I haven't worked out a sleep schedule yet. I think part of it is that I get bored in the evening and go to bed early. But then I don't sleep that well, so adapting to the time change is still an ongoing process.

In terms of food there are mostly great things and some not so great things. Passion fruit are 55 cents each so guess what I've been eating with my oatmeal every morning! Yummy! I haven't been able to find dried beans yet, which consists of a large portion of our diet, so this morning I'm heading out with Rosalind to go track some down on a health food store I heard about a few kilometers from here. And yesterday I put the thinnest layer of vegemite on my toast for lunch and still was overpowered by the saltiness. I hear it's good with avocado and other flavourful but unsalted foods. I'll give it one more try, but I can't guarantee that I will make it a regular part of my diet.

In terms of weather, it's supposed to get into the low 30's here this weekend and into early next week. Apparently that's the hottest it will ever have been in August. Yikes! It's strange, it's as warm here in winter as it is back home (Ontario) in August. You know, those great August days where it's warm but dry and sunny with a light breeze? That's what we've been having since I got here. Pretty incredible.

Did I mention I'm looking for a husband? Maybe I can mail-order one and have him shipped to me in early September? That would be perfect!

Well, that's it for me, I'm off to hunt for dried beans and to check out the craft market.