Life has been rolling along merrily for us lately. I love this time of the year with few clothes on and warm weather and tropical fruits and playing with friends and swimming in the ocean.
Cary is still in Vegas and the kids and I decided to take a little road trip to visit family. So often when I have taken trips, I wonder what it would be like to live in different areas I drive through. This time though, I was aware of deeply appreciating the beauty and the changing landscapes, but feeling no desire to move anywhere. I was enjoying being on the road, on an adventure. And I'm looking forward to going home again. We recently decided to extend our lease by another 6 months and I am very glad. I don't think we could find a better area to live in. At least for now. I don't want to stop taking trips, whether they are a few days or a few months or more. I think I've just found a nice balance within myself. And I've accepted our area as "home".
Our trip took several hours more than it should have due to some car trouble, but we ended up getting to my sisters house with the children and I happy and in one piece. The car however, had lost it's muffler and wasn't so happy. As we were part way over the Great Dividing Range, we lost one of the supports that holds the muffler up. I rigged it back up with a bungy cord. Knowing that would have a limited life span due to the heat, I was keen to get to my sisters house as soon as possible. But I could not resist a turnoff for "Thunderbolts cave". Captain Thunderbolt was a famous Australian bushranger and I just love that part of Australian history. We took the 3.4km round trip detour. It was a country area with just a few cows along the way so we could well imagine Captain Thunderbolt riding through there and we tried to imagine what he looked like and what he thought about and how he lived. I was fascinated by the cave, even though it was obviously not in the condition it was when C.T. hid there. There was a sign nearby saying that the cave had been deeper. Still, the fact that he had been there, was rather exciting to me.
A bit further down the road we lost the other muffler support so I used a belt to tie that end up. I noticed that the bungy was beginning to fray so I braided some hemp yarn and Summer finger knitted some cotton yarn and I used those little ropes to add to the support. Because we were delayed, we got to enjoy a magnificent sunset over pasture land. If we'd been further along, the sunset would have been hidden by trees. Such a beautiful gift! With 10kms to go to, thinking we would make it OK, I came to some recent roadworks, slowed down but hit a bump I just couldn't see in the dark. Crash...off came the muffler except it did hang on where the belt was supporting it. I dragged it down the highway until I could find a safe place to stop. I pulled over and thought I should just let it cool off and then put it in the back of the car and go the rest of the way. The stars were coming out and they were so pretty! Another gift! We had stopped in front of a house set back a little way on a country property. After a while, the man of the house must have noticed me sitting there with the emergency flashers on and came out to ask if we were OK. I told him what had happened and he agreed that it would be OK to drive and helped me put the muffler in the car. My brother in law had already insisted on coming out to help me so I needed to wait for him. The country man offered us a drink. AJ said that we were out of water so he took one of our water bottles and filled that and brought us about 20 big oranges from his orchard...another gift!
If we had not taken the detour to the cave, we probably would have made it to my sisters house with the muffler still on, but we would not have had that adventure. Or all of those gifts! What happened to the car is a minor inconvenience. But it actually increased our joy of the day.
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