Ahhhhh

Nice lazy day. Library, a quick sporting goods store run to get a headlamp for me, so I can have hands free light in the pre-dawn (since my PhD mentor says "you won't survive without one" - and I pretty much plan to survive), lunch at TGIFridays (yes, I did not hallucinate the $5 sandwich and salad menu, although there is nothing in the place to tell you this, including the server).

Oldest has (against my better judgement, due to her potential impending failure in US History) signed on to work at a summer Scout camp. She is really excited, and some of her good friends from Venture Scouts, which I guess is what were Explorer Scouts back then (go Team Venture!), will be at the camp as well. She asked me to drive up there on Monday. Not sure she has realized that will be the last time I see her for a month. Actually, I am VERY sure she realizes this, and will go out of her way to not mention it or have any kind of goodbye. Teens are SO fun.

My wife is addicted to really poor quality movies on SciFi, or as they recently renamed themselves Scyfy. Something about a mega-gator awakened by a Hawaiian volcano. Intense laughter was the product. Although I am getting a little tired of the giant animal themes (go search for Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus...I kid you not! "It rises"

And got a nice lengthy email from down under with my hotel for the day I arrive in Perth. Reviews of the hotel are bad (bedbug bad) but I will only be there a night, then onto a bus. The place is centrally located and within a block of a restaurant I wanted to try - Sister Maud's Swedish House...a true smorgasbord buffet. And then a fun bus ride with stops at refueling roadhouses, so I get to experience "fine" dining that way. Trial and error on the trail, since there are not too many large places between the two points. I am nervous, but my accent will probably be as winning as an Australian accent is here, and a lot less common since this is the relatively non-tourist side of the continent. Plus, the "real" tourists won't ride a bus for 10 hours, but would fly from Perth.