I must again apologize to Graham and Balfe along with the rest of you for falling off posting wagon – yet again. This is not a request for sympathy just an explanation and possibly an excuse for not posting in a timely fashion. In the past 2 months I’ve wrapped up an 8 day volunteer stint with the Masters games, gone out of town three times, once by car to Glen Helen resort and twice by plane to Adelaide and Canberra. I’ve been working on the Bovine Tuberculosis management home study course I’m creating for the University of Minnesota, started a part time job at the Cancer Council of Northern Territory, and experienced several dust storms, two flash floods and the worst internet service imaginable. I have been taking pictures for you; they just haven’t found their way on to my computer before today. The next several posts won’t be in chronological order but at least they are posts! Will you please forgive now, Graham?
Last month was our second wedding anniversary and my amazing husband wanted to plan a surprise trip to celebrate. For packing purposes, he did eventually tell me what part of the country we would be visiting. Since we only had a long weekend we went to Adelaide. Twelve hundred miles might seem like quite a ways for a long weekend but if you live in the center of Australia, the two and half hour flight is just down the road a piece.
Arriving Thursday evening, we hit Rundle Mall Friday morning for a little retail therapy where I managed to earn a security hold on my credit card. That afternoon, Dave sent me off to the spa. Saturday we headed north to the Barossa wine region. We hit some of our known favorite wineries and checked out some new ones as well. I was redeemed when Dave got his credit card shut down that day. The conversation with credit card security folks is always interesting. No matter how many times we’ve asked Chase to put a note in our accounts that we live in Australia. It never happens. The diligent watch for credit card fraud is appreciated but the conversations about my usual spending happens are silly. Heck yes, there’s a change in my spending pattern. I live in a town where the grocery store and K-Mart offer the only shopping opportunities; I can hardly control myself when a walk through the doors of real live department store. The closest thing Alice Springs has to a perfume spritzer is someone offering samples of 50% Deet insect repellant.
We stocked up on wine and premium chocolate and ate as many gourmet delights as our tummies could hold. There’s no denying that we were guilty of gluttony
, but there aren’t many sensory indulgences in Alice, it’s an unwritten rule in the outback that you must indulge when you have the chance. The pinnacle of our hedonistic weekend was after we had eaten a fabulous meal at Gaucho’s Argentinean steakhouse, we bought too much fresh baklava on the way back to our hotel where we bought a couple glasses of grandfather port. If I ever have to choose a last meal it will include a healthy shot of 100 year old port and warm baklava. If you’re going to die who cares about the calories or the diabetic coma that much sugar can throw you into!
Below are a few pictures of our day in the Barossa:
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