The Great Ocean Road - The Grotto

We climbed back in the car and made our way down to the Grotto!  This part was pretty sweet!!!!  We jumped a brick wall and went out where the waves break over the rocks at high tide.  We missed getting a shot of Roberto almost getting soaked by a big wave.

On to the London Bridge!

The Great Ocean Road - Port Campbell

I'm a little late getting this posted.  These pictures were actually taken on November 22nd.

The day after the wedding (the one we attended anyway), we made a trip to the Great Ocean Road.  This post is going to be 95% pictures with a little bit of commentary.  I'm going to let the pictures do the talking on this one....LOL

We made our way back down the road a bit and into another little scenic areas.  These "scenic" places were few and far between.

Wait a minute.....Where did that blonde come from?  I didn't even notice she was there until now.....LOL

On to The Grotto!

Australia

Considering we were on the plane for 15 hours, I don't really remember much of this leg of the trip.

After being awake for some 19 hours, I was dragging ass pretty hard at this stage of the game.  We'd eaten supper at a restaraunt near our gate where I was fortunate enough to have been able to drink two pilsner glasses of Bud Light.  I just didn't realize at the time how fortunate I was.

We boarded the plane at 10:30 local time.  Once we took off the cabin crew announced that if we would like to take a nap, just put our tray down and they would wake you to ask you what you wanted for supper.  They didn't have to tell me twice.  I remember blinking and then I remember Annita shaking me awake to tell me they were going to start serving supper.  Those two Bud Lights went through me quicker than I had anticipated, and I knew I wanted to have a beer to wash down those two Nyquil gel-caps, so I excused myself to make room.

Annita had the beef and vegetables while I elected to have the chicken and rice.  It was only about 3 or 4 hours after our last meal so I didn't eat very much of it.  The flight attendant had asked me what I wanted to drink and I asked her what kind of beers they had.  She said they had VB and something else.  If I would have had a coin in my pocket, I would have flipped it, but I didn't so I just took a VB.  I knew I was in trouble when I could smell it the second I opened the can.  I took a sip.

I'm going to take a guess that VB stands for Very Bad.  I had a sudden urge to try to lick my "21 hours since last shower" armpit to get the taste out of my mouth.  Fortunately for me, I'm not that flexible.  I finished my supper, then popped the two Nyquil and took a big pull of of the ole VB.  I still shudder when I think of it.  After several more drinks, I finally finished the beer and I had a big sigh of relief.  Shortly thereafter, I had a huge burp that didn't taste much better.  It was somewhere around this point that I realized how lucky I was for those last two Bud Lights....

Shortly thereafter, I closed my eyes for a long sleep.  Roughly four hours later, the plane hit some turbulence.  The pilot quickly got on the PA and announced what was happening.  Directly after that, the cabin crew got on and made another announcement.  That was QUICKLY followed by a newborn baby, three rows up from us, SCREAMING HIS LUNGS OUT!!!  It only took 5 or 10 minutes of that for me to get tired of it.  Luckily, Annita had gone through the pouch of crap they gave us and we had a set of earplugs mixed in with the sleeping eye patches.

The night was fairly uneventful after that and we're pretty sure we got about 10 or so hours of sleep, minus the supper, breakfast and screaming baby.

Once on the ground in Melbourne, we went through security and gathered up our luggage.  We walked out of the secure area and were met by Kerrie and Emelia, Annita's sister-in-law and mother.  Kerrie gave us a ride downtown for us to meet Roberto for lunch.

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(I realize the pictures say Auckland, but they actually were taken in Melbourne.  I'm a blonde.)

Kerrie then gave us a tour around the harbor.  Surprisingly enough, I took more pictures....

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I was a bit disappointed that the compass didn't list the distance to "Dighton, Kansas," but I guess they can't put all of the important sites on it.

We made a brief stop at a local liquor store to grab some bottles of wine for everyone else, and a couple of beers for myself.

Yes, just a couple.....

That last picture was taken on the counter at Roberto and Kerrie's house.  Speaking of their house, this is the absolutely disgusting view they have from the back porch of their house.

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At this point, it was pretty much a struggle to stay awake until we finally went to bed at 9:30.  I started this blog Thursday night, but due to circumstances, it's not posted until Saturday morning....LOL

As we're not at the end of the blog entry, I thought I'd post one more appropriate photo.....

Two Down, One to Go...

Two Down, One to Go...

The plane left the gate at Denver and almost made it to the runway before they stopped the plane and asked over the PA system if there were any doctors or nurses on the plane.  No reply.  They kept down the line, getting to "are there any EMT's on the plane?"  Evidently, there was an elderly lady that was having breathing problems, as they had taken her a bottle of oxygen.  The pilot turned around and headed back to the gate.  I pulled out my cell phone and texted my friend Shawn, who is a doctor.  I told him he should have been on the plane, they needed a doctor.  He replied, and I'm paraphrasing here, you should have said, "I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."  While humorous, I don't think the airline personnel would have seen the humor in it.  Besides, we stayed at a Comfort Inn, and the delivery just isn't the same.....

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But we did make it!!!!

And it was just in the nick of time too!!!  We only had about 12 hours once on the ground until our flight was due to leave for Melbourne.  We had to hang around for about 3 hours before we could get our tickets for the last leg, so we went and ate lunch.

We pretty much twiddled our thumbs for the remaining 2 hours, but once we had the tickets we were off to the golf course!!!  We went to Westchester Golf Course and Driving Range.  We'd read the reviews on the web and didn't have our hopes up too high, but it was a very nice course and in pretty good shape.  We rented clubs that looked like they had never been cleaned.....EVER!!!  I had a Callaway driver that looked like one of the previous renters didn't like their shots and had pounded it on the ground, denting the bottom of the club.  It said 460cc driver, but it looked more like a 440, maybe 445cc.  On the lighter side, with the bottom dented in, it didn't drag so much when you hit it "a little fat."  The biggest problem we had with the course was the greens looked like a hail storm had just passed through.  I honestly think Nita and I were the only ones repairing the greens!!  I quickly took the lead in our little 9 hole endeavor, but we won't go into the final score.  I hate to brag.....

We caught another taxi ride back, made our way through security and ate supper.  Its now 7:20 pm, local time and the plane doesn't take off until 10:40 local time.  That's 12:40 am western Kansas time and we crawled out of bed at 4:30 am after 4 or 5 hours of sleep.  I'm beginning to think I'll be able to sleep most of the sixteen and three quarter hours we'll spend in the air to Melbourne.

Of course, the 2 Nyquil I'll take on the plane, washed down by a fermented hops beverage of some type will assist that!!!!

One Down, Two to Go....

Not much sleep was had last night.  I was tired, but I was also afraid that we wouldn't wake up on time and the entire trip would be shot.  Annita and I turned off the lights and TV in the hotel room at about 10:30, knowing that the alarm on my cell phone would go off at 4:30 AM.  It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when the hotel room alarm clock started going off.  Apparently, the previous occupant was thinking of us and set the alarm to go off at midnight.  Annita pounded on the clock until it quieted down.  Approximately 9 minutes later, we found out that she hadn't turned it off, she had only hit the snooze button.

When the cell phone did go off at 4:30, there was a slight "discussion" about who was going to take the first shower and who got to sleep for another 10 minutes.  I won.  And by that, I mean I got to take the first shower.

We made our way downstairs and after a brief stop at Wal-Mart, we were off to the airport.  It's amazing how empty Wal-Mart is at 5:15 in the morning.

I'm still amazed at how thorough the new pat downs are at the airport.  Surprisingly, those rubber gloves didn't chafe at all.  I did need to step outside and have a cigarette afterwards.  I'm just disappointed that I didn't get his phone number.

Once inside the plane, the co-pilot gave us our pre-flight instructions and he said something about "Beachcraft 1900" and "comfort" in the same sentence.  Annita leaned across the aisle and said "comfort?"

They then did the standard safety instructions also.  Of note was the fact that our seat cushion could be used as a flotation device.  I'm trying to think of a place that has less water than the area between Garden City Kansas and Denver Colorado.  The only place I can think of is the Sahara Desert.  I'm pretty sure they've recently discovered that most locales on the planet Mars have more water than western Kansas.  I guess I should feel lucky.  If, by some chance, our plane happens to crash land in some farmers stock tank, I'm not likely to drown.

I'm merrily typing away on my computer, composing this blog and Annita is sitting beside me, sipping on her McDonald's coffee and reading her new book.  My main complaint about the second leg of our journey is that Annita is sitting in row 30 and I am, for some unknown reason, sitting in row 36.  It's like when we take trips with friends and they separate us so they don't have to put up with our PDA's (Public Displays of Affection).  I didn't think we made THAT big of a scene the last time we flew.....

I'm Such a Wimp....

My wife bought the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and used it a couple of times last week while I was working out across the room.  I was scanning the Auction House on one of my World of Warcraft accounts.

She kept trying to get me to do it with her, but I didn't want to embarrass her, since I'm a shining example of "The Perfect Specimen."

I got home at around 3:30 yesterday and decided I'd give it a try without her in the house to laugh at me.  I put on a pair of shorts and spread out the workout mat and placed the two 3 pound dumb bells beside the mat.  I turned on the DVD and proceeded to work out.

It's a 20 minute workout, of which I did maybe 12 minutes worth.  The other 8 were spent doubled over with my hands on my knees, wheezing as hard as I could, trying to figure out where the nearest bottle of oxygen was and whether or not I could make it to it before I lost consciousness.

Fairly early in the video, she has you get down and do push ups.  I jumped down and from the standard push up position, you can't see how fast they're doing the push ups on the video.  I'm doing the down-up movements in time with the beat of the 70's porno music playing in the background, which I have to admit is better than listening to Jillian constantly encouraging you.  It didn't take long before I started doing the sissy push ups on my knees.  Not too long after that, I started my first wheezing session and rolled over to see the TV.  They were doing REALLY SLOW push ups compared to what I was doing.

The part I was really dreading was doing crunches.  When I graduated high school, I was a 6 foot tall, 130 lb beast!!!  Even at the prime of my life, I couldn't do 5 sit ups if my life depended on it.  Bo Derek could have promised me carnal pleasure in exchange for 5 sit ups and I couldn't have done it.  Jillian is whining about breathing in and out properly during the crunches.  Does she realize how hard it is to even breathe when you're grunting for your life after the third crunch?

There's a lateral lunge where you bring the 3 lb dumb bells straight in front of you at arms length while you lean to one side and then the other.  I was shocked to see how bad the dumb bells were shaking on the first lift.  I'm still blaming it on the rapid fire push ups from earlier.

Needless to say, I was essentially shot after my *20 minute* workout.  I dropped onto the couch and didn't have the strength to lift the remote up and turn off the DVD player.

I'm at work today, and I have to say that I don't trust my legs to take the stairs two at a time like I normally do.  I pretty much take one at a time and hope I don't puddle up at the bottom of the stairs.

I also won't be doing the Jillian work out tonight.  It's Men's Night Golf and I'll be going out to the Lane County Country Club (home of the grass traps and sand greens) for my work out.  That involves one swing of the golf club, followed by your favorite curse at the top of your lungs, quickly followed by 3 or 4 minutes of 12 oz Bud Light curls out in the neighboring wheat field while you look for your ball.

The Jason Lorimor Explanation

My step daughter has a *thing* with deformities. I'm not sure where this came from, but she took me over to Scott City to have the lump on my left shoulder blade looked at. The gal told me it's nothing and that she doesn't think it needs to be cut out unless I really think it needs to be cut out. I'm going to point out that I told the PA I'd rather she used a chainsaw to take a look at it than a needle.

I don't like needles. I can watch horror movies and see people getting their heads ripped off, guts pulled out, limbs yanked off, etc., but if the *bad guy* pulls out a needle to give them a shot, I cringe like a little bitch.

We were at the Bowling Alley here in Dighton, eating breakfast. I also have to explain that Amy and I stick up for each other. If Annita picks on one of us, the other sticks up for them. Amy and I had slammed Annita about something and we were all laughing....Except for Annita. Amy looked at me and said, "You're more like a step-brother than a step-dad." I burst into laughter and was still trying to regain some composure when she added, "A younger step-brother."

Back to deformities.....Amy told me that it's a deformity and I *need* to have it removed. I explained the whole "needle" thing and she didn't have a problem with that. What she told me was that by the time I decided to have it removed, the lump would have it's own rib cage! She named the lump Jason and he has taken on his own life.

Probably a week or so later, I'm out at the Lane County Country Club with my dad and I remembered Jason.  I looked at him very seriously and said, "well, I suppose I should tell you about Jason Lorimor."

Dad's eyebrows rose up above his receding hairline and I could see the "you mean I have a grandson I don't know about" thought, plain as day across his bare forehead.  After several minutes of laughter I told him about the lump and what the doctor said and Amy's thoughts about the whole thing.

He still gets brought into conversation more times than you'd think......