Pirates and Indians

Hello everyone,

We've haven't really done much lately. The kids and me are a bit tired. I'm going to start taking my iron supplements again. Hopefully then I'll wake feeling like I want to wake up.

We went to an Indian Museum last week. It had a small indoor area with relics from when Indians were living in the area, and explantions about what things were. There was stuff going back as far as 1500BC! We read about their diet, (laregly animals and acorns) and I really wondered how it was they weren't all suffering from nutrient deficiencies! Why am I? Anyway, there was some fantastic basket work including a tight fighting basket cap that a lady indian mannequin was wearing. I thought it looked pretty cool, I'd wear it.

Then there was a huge outdoor area with indian huts, massive old oak tree groves, a games arena, caves with Indian Paintings (we didn't make it to these, but plan to go again), and huge flat rocks where the Indian ladies had left holes from where they'd been grounding acorns for flour. So the kids had ball pretending to be Indians. They ground acorns, had taste aswell - very bitter - ground face paint, painted themselves, and then we decided that we'd like to live this way. Well, I decided that a long time ago, but haven't really done anything about it, and then I had to explain to the kids why we couldn't live like that. Though I'm not sure I really convinced myself or them! Dreams of living self sufficiently rose to the surface.

It was on this day that I needed to pick Mum up from her tour to the grand canyon. I passed the pickup point on my way to the Indian Museum, and timed that it was only 40 minutes away. However, on my return, at only 3:15 in the afternoon the traffic had picked up remarkably! So I thought I'd be smart and take a shortcut. I passed a sign saying Mullholland Drive, it clearly wasn't the famous part, we'd been on that, but I did remember reading somewhere that it extended all the way to the coast, so I thought it would pop out way further up the freeway, where I'd been on it before. So off I went. Next thing I'm on a dirt road - still Mullholland - and then there was a gate into a state park blocking my way! So I dug out my map, which was extremely low on detail, and found that without the gate, it would indeed have been quite a short cut. But there was no helping now. I was meant to be meeting Mum at this point! I'd already made a major detour from my original route, so I ended up taking a cross mountain route that then led me through Santa Monica, Mailbu, and Venice Beach. I ended up being a dramatic 2 1/2 hours late to get Mum. My Mobile was out of batteries too, so I couldn't let her know or anything. It was all extremely stressful. Poor Mum.

Anway, she stayed the next day and then had to go out to the airport to fly away to Hawaii. It was a bit sad saying goodbye, sort of like the last vestige of my life in Australia for a long time. When we drove out to the airport there was smoke everywhere! There were huge fires on this day, and the sun was totally red from all the smoke. Many houses were burnt down, but we were a long way from the danger. It did, however, make the comparisons between fires in Ferny Creek and fires in California seem very overstretched. These fires were each larger than 600 acres, and apparently fires such as these rage every year, often more. It was very eerie with all that smoke.

On Sunday we took the kids sailing. They had a great time learning about steering with the rudder and which heading you need to take into the wind to make the boat go at its fastest. We saw a huge big old wooden ship, which was firing cannons. THe guy at the boat hire place told us that there a few of them around, and that sometimes the go out together and hold mock battles. There must be quite a few rich eccentrics around here. We decided that it was a pirate ship though - more fun for the kids.

We also saw some dolphins, which was quite surprising. I've never seen dolphins in the wild before. The kids had a great time nad there wasn't a sign of sea sickness, and thats fantastic because it means a long sailing trip really is a possibility, as we've been dreaming for a while.

Anyway, thats about it. Tomorrow we're going to the la brea tar pits, where prehistoric animals were preserved for thousands of years. So that'll be in my next post. Also, if people would email more that'd be so nice, I'm starting to feel a little home sick.

Cheers, from Nic