Exhausted

Travel is exhausting, isn't it?  Even though all I had to do was stay awake and steer the van, I'm as tired as if I was doing a lot more!  I feel like I could lie down and sleep for a week!

The children, Jessie, and I really enjoyed making the trip to Ft. Lauderdale to enjoy the Temple Open House there yesterday.  It was a pleasure to make it possible for my children and non-member husband to see more of the temple than just the waiting room and restrooms.

The girls seemed most impressed with the Bride's room and Sealing room.  They were really lovely.  I was most impressed that there are two instruction rooms, so those attending the endowment ceremony will move during the process of it.  I thought that was super cool.

We enjoyed an amazing meal when we stopped in Boca Raton.  I'll share more about that later.  We also went to Miami and got nicely lost.  I was grateful to have a map app then because we did not get lost in a nice part of town.

Life sure is amazing, isn't  it?  Whether we see it as positive or negative, life is amazing!

Saturday Soliloquy #25: Traveling up the Coast

I remember Karratha only by name.  I spent a night in Broome.  And another night in Darwin.  Darwin was my shortest stay of all my stops around the north of Oz.  All I remember about Darwin is thinking that it looked very American and how disappointing that was.

Probably I already mentioned it, but since it would've happened here, I'm going to mention it again.  I wanted to travel to Alice Springs and see Ayer's Rock, but I didn't have time to travel south as far as I'd need to go and get back to Sydney for my flight.  I learned from other travelers that it looked NOTHING like it was "supposed" to look the year I was there.  Instead of being rather barren red rock, it basically looked like a very large green hill (or series of hills).  Very strange, eh?

I remember Cairns. To my memory it was a very beachy sort of city... pastel colors all around.  It was very cool, but didn't seem "Australian" per se to me.  I remember this building, but not the roos (or statues of) in the square.  The scene shown in this picture is a bit familiar, too.

Townsville was a pass-through I remember, though I don't remember anything specific about the place.

I spent the night in Brisbane.  I do not really remember much of anything about it, though.  Another pastel beach city, maybe.

And then back to Sydney.

I don't remember if I did it the first time I was there, or the last, but I did take a trip out to the Blue Mountains.  It was pretty cool.  Our driver was fun.  We got to try our hand at a whip.  That was a lot more difficult than it looked!  I wasn't able to crack it at all.  Dang it!  I do think the Blue Mountains trip was during the last few days I spent in Sydney.  Other than that, and shopping for gifts to give when I returned (Omiyagei), I don't remember anything specific about Sydney (from the last time I was there).

All in all, my time in Oz was very good for me.  I'm very glad I did it.