On the Road to the Rock

After enjoying the best iced coffee in the world, we headed for Uluru. Miriam drove and I broke out the travel guitar that my friend Rich let me borrow for this trip. This guitar is really nice for traveling and sounds great too. It's made from carbon fiber and is indifferent to temperature and humidity. It's also so durable that on the website of the manufacture they have a picture of a guy who drove over it with his car. I promised Rich I wouldn't try that one. As if that's not amazing, the most amazing thing is that the neck detaches from the body of the guitar without taking off the strings. And when you attach it back, it's only requires a little fine tuning.

Mim drove as I went through my circle of fourths scale exercises. Then played a few fiddle tunes and then a few current favorite songs. Like "Hang Me, oh Hang Me" which Torrey taught me to play. And Springsteen's murder spree song Nebraska which tells the same story as the Martin Sheen/Sissy Spacek movie "Badlands". It was kind of hard to play as the shocks in the van aren't that great and the road is a bit bumpy, especially sitting in the back. But it was fun to play.

When we pulled into Alice Springs we had to stop in at the van rental place because a warning light had come on the day before. The mechanic  came out and hooked a reader to a secret USB port and push a couple of buttons, gave a sour look at the thing and then turned to me and smiled and said "no worries mate, if it comes on again just ignore it". I must have looked unconvinced because then he added "everything is going to be alright, mate". And I thought to myself, "where have I heard that before"? Well not from my dad who told me when I went into the Navy, "son, just expect that it's going to be hell on earth and then if it doesn't turn out that way, you're happy, and if it does, well then you were prepared". Or as my mother told me when my first love Marie broke my heart, "son, get used to it cause that right there is like the Porter Wagner says, them's the cold hard facts of life". And you wonder why I worry that Torrey is going to drop out of college, shave his head, tattoo his face, and join a religious cult like the Baptists.

But at this point I don't really know what option to take. Mim is inside checking her email so it's all up to me. Well I don't really expect the worst to happen anymore, although Mim and Torrey will tell you that I worry more than anyone they know. I felt like the customer here with a valid issue and so I though that I was in the driver's seat. That gave me a measure of confidence and I said "well I don't know about that, I think that I would like to trade this one in for a different one". But this guy is good, the smile never left his face, and he said "oh yeah, well we don't have another one mate, it's this one or nothing". Well I guess he explained exactly in a way so I could understand it and I said, "no worries, mate, we're fine with this one". "We'll be on our way now" and off we went into the wild blue yonder. The wild blue yonder was four hundred seventy-five kilometers of two lane highway across the Australian outback.

The road was in good shape and not really busy so we were able to make good time. The rental company makes you sign an agreement which says that you will not exceed one hundred and ten kilometers per hour, so we averaged about one hundred and five. When we did see the occasional car it was flying by us like we were standing still. But that was nothing compared to the "Truck Trains" found in the Australian Outback. These are big rigs hooked up to three or four trailers. And not your standard size trailers, these were extra long. They carried everything from cargo to hay to fuel. When I'd see one coming I'd slow down and pull over to the side of the road as far as I could, as if the truck lost control or a trailer jack-knifed we'd be safe and sound. It's really crazy because these guys fly down the road like they own it, because they do own it, it's might makes right here in the wild west. You can see them coming at you and the trailers are swaying back and fourth and you're thinking "holy shit". Then it passes you with a blast of hot air which displaces the van and sends it wobbling. Well that only happened once because from then on I was practically stopped when they passed.

                                                            TRUCK TRAIN

                                                       WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE

We had to reassess our plans as it became clear that we were not going to make it to our destination before dark. The reason it was important not to be driving after dark was very sad and too obvious. The side of the road was littered with the carcasses of road-kill Kangaroos. We were counting about one every five kilometers. We didn't see any live ones but that's because out here they are most active at dawn and dusk. We passed one that was fresh enough to have two Wedge-tailed Eagles on it.

We decided to bag Kings Canyon and go straight to Uluru. We stayed at a caravan park and when we pulled out money to pay they said "no charge mates". Wow! You won't find that anywhere I've ever been. So we found our little campsite and yes Mim whiffed up some gin and tonics and we were good.