Home, Sweet Home

South Bank Brisbane
My son Benn at Coogee for lunch

School friends Liz & Sue with me in Alice Springs

Sun setting on a 'White Gum' tree

'White Gums' homestead

As I am typing this, I am immersed in the countryside of my youth - the red centre of Australia. The red dirt, the white trunked green/blue gum trees and the blue sky are colours so familiar they almost hurt. I am here in Alice Springs to attend the 80th birthday of the mum of my 'oldest' girlfriend - we met 46 years ago. Her parents had the only dairy farm in the area during the 'ten year drought' of 1956-1966 (I arrived in Alice in 1961 and left at the end of 1968) and my favourite times were the weekends spent on their dairy farm. Ah, memories - I was on the property yesterday and walked away from the throngs of family and special guests to just look around me and take in the 'aura'. A truly magical place of remembrance for me. Check out just one of the White Gum trees that they named their property after! Whilst here in Alice I stayed with another of my school friends, and also caught up with another two. It has been fun reminiscing about our life back then.

But I digress...after our usual 13 hour flight from Australia to Brisbane, my sister Loretta met us at the airport and whisked us through the early commute traffic to a hotel on the south of Brisbane. We then met up with my other sister Rose, brother Tracy and his son Greg and had champagne with lunch. How decadent. We knew to overcome jet lag we should stay up until night time, so although Murray succumbed and had a mini-sleep, Loretta and I took a lovely walk along the river on the south end of Brisbane city where they have created an artificial beach. Beautiful. The next day we put Murray on a plane to Melbourne and he caught up with his three kids and attended the football grand final. Sadly his team lost on the day.

My 93 year old mother was in fine form and happy to have me back home safely. Then it was time for lunch with 3 of my sisters and another brother and their spouses. So within 30 hours of arrival I had caught up with all of my family (except my Aunt in Ballina who I will see very soon).

Within 4 days I flew to Sydney and spent a fabulous day & evening with my son Benn, and my nephew Pete and his fiancee Sam who joined us for dinner. After I leave Alice Springs I will fly to Darwin (tomorrow in fact) and spend a week with my youngest son Mark. From Darwin I will join Murray in Ballina where we will stay in our B&B by the river for the next 6 months before returning to the USA and our 2 month RV trip to Alaska commencing 1 June.