New Toy, New Games

I picked up a GPS yesterday while looking for something else entirely - but at under $200AUD it was a reasonable price - and today decided to play a bit of a game with it.  Trish and I picked a region quite close (within 50km) of home, and then scrolled through the points of interest in that region until we found - a winery.  Set that as the destination and just set off. 

Okay on the way to the destination, we spotted a nice little river spot and pinned it for future reference.  Went to the Winery/Restaurant and baulked at the prices - $12 for a scoop of icecream (no matter how glowingly it's described) is just bullshit - and continued on because the Margaret River Chocolate Company was just up the road a ways.

Had a great lunch, retraced to the pinned river picnic spot, took a few photos, and wended our way back slowly. 

So new sport - stick a pin in the GPS and just go.  GPStrailing, anyone?

Whalemma

So now we're in the situation of having objected strenuously to the Japanese about their killing of whales in and around our waters, and having to put down a whale calf ourselves....

Portents and omens

Two things.  Make that three:

1900 hrs txting while sitting upstairs waiting while bookclub and couchsurfers occupied the blogger usual corner "teddlesruss: Is the blogger meetup on? about 2 hours ago from txt "

2130 hrs finally got home and decided to check twitter to see why I'd had no response "goatlady: bloggers meetup now INSIDE at the brass monkey - our regular spot is closed about 2 hours ago from mobile web"

2132 hrs reading the fine print on the website too "Please read about important changes to our SMS service."

Bugger!

Foxes Bears and News Of The Weird Oh My

Someone is playing some kind of a pun here - two talented young girls, both named Emily, one named after one animal, the other named after another animal.  This gets into the "classic middle name" territory, where fact is weirder than anything you could make up... 

Random pun thought of the week:  If you took a bunch of grapes and glued them together into the shape of a large citrus fruit, would that be a visual/artistic pun? 

Ch-ch-changes...

If you've been following the story, you'll have seen pictures at Flickr, and the odd article here, as I fiddle and fart my way through "minor" refurb and refit work on the bus now known as DuckZilla.  I say "minor" but it's turned out to be a fairly large lot of jobs. 

The bus now has real plumbing rather than garden hoses, can use mains water instead of just running off a pump and internal water tanks all the time, the 12V solar electrics have been reworked to prevent the shorts and intermittents, rollout annex awning instead of the old rope track slide-on, there's a gas hot water system almost finished installing, some roof leaks have been fixed, and I'm planning to replace thermally inefficient all around windows with insulated panels and smaller more efficient widows placed where I need them. 

Now when I look around me, I see familiar panels behind which are things I know intimately.  I know that if I get stuck any place, I will be able to manage just fine thank you, and I will be able to fix most anything that might fail, and that experience alone has made all the skinned knuckles, bruises, and aching muscles worthwhile. 

The remaining work is now mostly downhill, and now that I've kitted the bus out (at a cost of around another $3500 as near as I can figure) with all the extras, I will be able to live off the grid for four weeks at a time if I use my water sparingly.   The wild blue yonder is looking better and better by the minute...