22 Mar 2011
Which is more humane: to squish the icky bug into the window or to roll that same window down while speeding along at 100 km/hr (60 mi/hr) to let it “fly away”? In the former scenario, the bug may see the oncoming shadow of my Rough Guide to Tasmania and think nothing of it until it can no longer think, while the latter is likely akin to being sucked out of an airplane at 35,000 feet, which might propose a greater sense of terror. Then again, the former scenario results in visible blood and guts while the latter leaves one with their hands clean. Clearly the most humane action would be to let the little fella live on my window until we have come to a complete stop, at which time I would gently shoo him out of the van. But that would require a certain trust that he won’t, in the meantime, fly into my face or eyes or hair and I just don’t know that I have that in me today, on this rainy, road-tripping ramble along the Great Western Tiers Tourist route. For those that are wondering where this entire line of thought comes from, well, these are the things Gina and I talk about to keep the rainy day doldrums at bay. Pure, braniac, Mensa material things.
So it’s raining here. Been raining quite hard, actually, for the past two days. It started in Penguin and followed us south to the muraled town of Sheffield, where it rained so hard we had to pull over to stuff paper towels into the leaky slider door. Yes, the leaky slider door. It appears that Charlie has been keeping a few things from us, a few blemishes that he’s apparently been embarrassed to admit to, this business of a leaky slider door and leaky hi-top window seal. No matter, we have devised ingenious methods to keep the water at bay, including using the lid of the non-stick cooking spray can as an environmentally hip and friendly rainwater collection bin. We thought it might overflow with last night’s downpours so we backed it up with my shoe chamois. Have we yet discussed my shoe chamois? I hate to reveal too much about it, it being such a grandiose idea as to no doubt earn me an early retirement when I get around to patenting it, but it really is a thing of beauty when it comes to cleaning up one’s Crocs after another rinse in the holiday park shower. For now, let’s just say my shoe chamois is working double-time as a leaky-seal chamois.
Tonight we are pulled-in and plugged-in outside of Launceston, after motoring our way from Gowrie Park (a depressing caravan park near Mt. Roland, a mountain that we had planned to hike but scrapped due to the miserable weather) through the small countryside towns of Mole Creek (outside of which we did a lovely if not a bit wet 30 minute return hike to Alum Cliffs), Chudleigh (home of the Honey Farm), Deloraine (not as cute as we had hoped), and Westbury (much cuter but nowhere to camp if you don’t count the empty field behind the junkyard behind the cafe where a 9-minute shower goes for $6). The rolling farmland we’ve been traveling through is delightful. Now we hope only that the weather will turn the same.
