Monday afternoon, 3.35 the bus pulls into Grand Rapids bus station,
Julie and I had no problem recognizing each other in the crowd, must be our
pretty faces hey.
We call in at a bar and grill place for a feed, and a beer for me, coffee
for the chauffeur. A young guy came over and sat for a little while
chatting to us, he'd been over in Oz himself last year but he was in Woolongong,
why doesn't anyone visit Perth? When we got back to the truck you
couldn't see a thing through the windscreen, it was snowing quite heavily.
The windscreen wipers didn't really move much of it either.
Home at Julie's place I meet Harrison (who was very interested in Vegemite),
Tony and Jared (aka Monkey according to Harrison). We've had a bit
of musical beds going on, I'm in Julie's bed, Julie's in Jared's bed and Jared
is on the couch.
Tuesday morning I had a great sleep in, much needed of course, I didn't
get up till 8.30. Harrison had gone to work and Jared to school, Tony
was still around as he didn't start work till 11. Julie and I had breakfast,
she was very brave and tried a little vegemite on her bagel, what a picture
her face was.
After breakfast she took me for a drive around Greenville (after scraping
snow and ice from the windows) where we had a cuppa in a cute little place
that is just getting set up as a 50's style diner. I'm sure by time
I come back for another visit it will all be finished.
We had a great time wandering around a scrapbooking store, Tracey you
would have a ball in here, but leave Louise at home, she'll break the
bank if she was let loose.
I also got a private tour of Julie's local church where she is the secretary.
I missed out on watching her choir practice on Sunday night but I did
get to see the hand bells and chimes that they use for concerts. You
could build up some serious muscles with the big bells.
Back home and a hot cuppa to warm us after our wander around in the snow,
and pizza for dinner. Harrison thought the crust was rather boring
so we got out the vegemite again and he and Jared tried some. I guess
I should have warned Harrison to only put a thin spread not a big dollop on
his crust, at least until he figured out if he like it or not. I've
really enjoyed watching the different reactions people have had when tasting
it. Jared gave an oscar winning performance, I didn't think he would
ever speak to me again.
Tonight is Karaoke night at the local bar so off I went for a night out
with Harrison and a jar of vegemite. There were some really
good singers and as is often the case at karaoke nights, some really bad
singers too. I got to meet Harrison's mates who made sure I had a
great night out, especially those that didn't like the vegemite, I got quite
a few laughs out of it, and so did a fewof the others. A few of them
did like it though they did say the after taste was a bit odd, nothing that
a drink wouldn't fix. Talking of drink, I just had to take a pic to
show you the glass I was drinking out of, or should I say jar?
I got a lift home with Melissa and Sammy, arriving at the house at 2.30am,
karaoke nights don't finish early over here.
Wednesday morning and Julie calls a friend she wanted me to meet. Unfortunately
her friend wasn't feeling too good so that visit was off the agenda for the
day. We went for another drive in the opposite direction to yesterday.
Thursday morning and it's time to get everything packed up and ready to
catch the flight to Idaho. We stopped at another little restaurant
for lunch and made it to the airport in plenty of time. Check in was
a bit different here. I checked in at the desk, got my boarding pass,
but you don't check your cases in just yet. You have to go back to
the front of the airport and put the cases through an x-ray machine. My
cases are locked up so I had to hang around and wait to see if they wanted
to open them. Yes, they did want to open Mack, I was trying to think
of what could be in there that would cause a problem, no candles or anything
that might look suspicious, but it was only the laptop. The woman
took it out, wiped all over it with a small cloth, opening it up to wipe
also, then put the cloth in a machine. Julie asked what were they
looking for, we're thinking drugs or something, but it was explosives. I
wasn't allowed to cross the barrier so when it came time to close Mack up
again, I had to tell the woman to watch the zip when it got to the front
left hand corner, the dodgy part that flew open for Dale, it took her a
few goes but she finally got it closed, and no, it wasn't over full.
A quick call in the bathroom and then it's time to hit the souvenir shop.
I've chosen 2 fridge magnets and just checking out a few other things
when I'm being paged to go to the boarding desk to retrieve a lost item.
Julie and I were stunned as we couldn't think of anything I could have
lost. The two big bags had gone through and all I had was my backpack,
and that was over my shoulder. I hadn't had my purse or anything out
to have dropped. The old grey cells just ain't what they used to be.
I'd left my boarding pass on the sink in the loo.
Time to say goodbye to Julie and off I go into the passengers only part
of the airport. Not a lot of shopping to do in here, thank goodness
I hear you say. The plane is delayed, but by now I expect something
to happen to prevent me arriving on time anywhere. At least this time
it was only about 40 minutes.
Thank you to Julie and the boys for welcoming me into your home and showing
me a great time in Michigan. It was great to finally meet you all.
