Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.
We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.
Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.
It's time.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Day 14 Living In The Beast

I tried calling it Matilda, but that refused to stick. Instead we reflexively referred to it as The Beast. "It" being a six berth monster motorhome, rented from Cheapa Campa (that's honestly what it's called) in Cairns. Given it's heft and girth it is entertaining to note that it is branded as a  "Sprinter". The Beast does many things, but The Beast does not sprint. Lumber, yes, but sprint... no. I can only imagine the reaction of the marketing department when "Lumberer" was proposed.

Those of you who know me from way back will be tut-tutting, Schott in an RV! After all the diatribes about how that is not camping! About "RV people"! About how that is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the world! And so on. Um, yeah... For sure, give me a tent and a canoe any day, but this is very much an apples and oranges scenario. It turns out that The Beast lets me live out my sailing fantasies! A cleverly designed, compact, totally self contained living space that you can captain from destination to destination is wickedly appealing to me. And... without the skill and stamina required to captain an actual boat! Certainly some skill is required to manuevre The Beast, but the photos below are misleading - Lorraine did all the hard twisty and urban bits. I just drove straight across the Outback (see, like an ocean!) where I could do the least harm, humming sea shanties, Waltzing Matilda and, inexplicably, Smoke On The Water.

Motorhome people also form a kind of community. Mostly here it's tubby frumpy seniors from the parts of Australia that have a sort of winter (the damp cool bits). With these we exchanged cheery gdays and howyagoinmates at the campsites, but on the road I was always on the lookout for our own people, the other Cheapa Campa renters. On empty highways here drivers often give a wave to vehicles coming the other way, usually just a few fingers raised from the steering wheel. I loved doing this, but when I saw other Cheapa Campas - our people - I took to doing a fist pump. Nobody returned the greeting. In fact, most didn't even make eye contact, staring resolutely ahead. Bizarre.

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