It's been awhile between blogs as they say. Not for any reason other than having returned to the life of a nomad, computers are less accessible and reliable. I walked into an internet Cafe on Todd Mall in Alice Springs about an hour ago to use the remaining 8 minutes on my $5 hour to check if my dream job, man or house had sent me an email but by some massive stroke of luck the computer I sat down to didn't require me to log on in order to use my 8 minutes so I've been surfing for fresh air since I sat down. Gotta love the universe. Either that or some other poor bastard who forgot to log off. oh well, cheers whoever you are. I think it is the universe though because I got a "you have one minute left" message at which time I got a 'log out and log back in' message coming from somewhere over my head. So log out and in I did and I'm still going. That was about half an hour ago so here I am to offer an update to the latest shenanigans (or not) in the life of...well me.

While it feels like an eternity I have only been back in Alice for just over a week. VeroniCAR, Jacqui and I left Melbourne a week before the week before we got here. While there were those who doubted VeroniCARs ability to deliver the goods to our final destination, she has never been better. I never doubted her, and I think she knows that because she's never let me down. Not even when the headlights failed...She just needed a wee rest. Thanks to Dave E and a bit of bush mechanics, she once again shines bright when the sun doesn't. And when her voice failed, I just pulled out the guts, played with the wiring of the CD player and alas once again she sings, and sing she did all the way to Alice. Mind you she's lost her voice again, I think the heat might have melted her vocal chords.......She doesn't beep, the horns stuffed but apart from all that she's like brand new. .......SO anyway moving right along. The 3 of us left Melbourne one day. I think it was the Tuesday after that cracker jack grandfinal. We really had no plans except that we figured if we started driving and turned right at Adelaide we should end up in the vicinity of Alice Springs. We stopped in Warnambool to have lunch that we didn't have with Wendy which was great. Then we drove along to Nelson where we spent the first night in a pub room. I had one of the worst Parma's I've ever had, in fact it turned me off Parma.
For 2 days. Don't order Parma at the Nelson Hotel. ....We stopped there one night , then drove onto Beachport which is only about 1 or 2 hours down the road. I say one or two because I think we got confused and took some country back road because (and Jack will never admit this) she stuffed up the map reading job and tried to send us around the coast road. There is no bloody coast road from Nelson to Beachport and it's pretty obvious on the map it doesn't go around the coast. Anyway who cared we didn't. It wasn't a bad drive. I could be a bit confused about the order of events but I think we checked out Mt Gambier somewhere on the way to Beachport (Or was that from Robe). Anyway wherever it fits we did check out Mt Gambier. Nice place that. We stopped one night in Beachport, then drove to Robe where we stayed 2 nights in a room at the Robe Hotel. We had a fantastic balcony, which had it not been so freezing I personally would have stayed there for 2 whole days and nights - the view was awesome. But alas it was freezing so on the first night we ventured downstairs into the pub mid afternoon. It was at this time that "Rainbow, but my friends call me Rain" was born. We were playing pool during which time Jacqui almost wet her pants coz it was the first game she'd ever won - that we met 4 or 5 blokes who'd been in the pub all day and were at this time somewhat inebriated. They were in town because they worked for a logging company who'd put down tools for the day due to the total fire ban. I know I said it was freezing and it was the total fire ban day was the one we spent in the car getting there......So they thought what the hell let's go to the pub.....They were a OK but the type you wouldn't trust with your grandfathers rifle, so we employed the use of alias' . Myself starring as "Rainbow but my friends call me Rain' and Ketisha who has been around for years though it was the first time I'd met her. Anyway we had fun with the girls and managed to give the loggers the slip eventually. After 2 nights in freezing Robe we headed to Adelaide. By this time I was getting a bit irritable with poor ole' Jack because her snoring was keeping me awake at all hours. I tried sleeping with a pillow over my head, I tried pretending it was ocean waves crashing to the shore, I even tried pretending to snore louder and I had tried A meditation CD through my CD walkman(yes I still have a CD walkman IPOD SHMIPOD......) but I could still hear snoring through it. I have since vowed NEVER to underestimate the value of a good nights sleep and for those of you who live with a snoring spouses I appluade you. .....Oh and Bradmill. Who can forget Bradmill - jacqui's previous employer for supplying all her freinds with free earplugs for years. Oh how the old cliche 'you never know what you've got until it's gone' comes flying back. Is there anyone out there who still works at Bradmill???? OK the earplugs are only 30c a pair but that's not the point. So anyway I was a bit irritable. We drove through Adelaide and stopped at a place started with L. Through Adelaide about half an hour past Snowtown. Again in a pub room.....I took Rain out again, but not because I needed her just because it was fun and we all want to be someone else from time to time right?? That is right isn't it, oh my god don't tell me it's just me?? I should have known when I introduced myself as Rain to the nice couple at the bar, that it would come back to bite me in the arse. I felt like I was being tickled in a library. Like I was trying sooooo hard not to laugh, while I knew Jacqui was thinking'she's gonna break she's gonna break'. Then the male of the couple said about ooooh 5 minutes later; "So- have you got hippy parents or did you make that name up". Well that was it. I paused but I felt like he could see my intestines and that massive LIE that was sitting in my head. So I said "OK I made it up but I kinda like it".
Gotta run, so stay tuned........ Rainbow but my friends call me Rain.....XXX