Wherein Little Miss Sunshine Travels North

Australia is a very big, strange place.  In American terms, it's the size of America with the population of California, with the majority of the "midwest" looking like central Arizona.  Because of the Southern Hemisphere/equator thing, their Florida is in the north in a place called Queensland.  On Monday, SG and I went to this place called Queensland.  We flew into a little town called Cairns, which is pronounced "cans" if you're Australian.  It's the jumping off point for vacations to the Great Barrier Reef.

Our guardian angels, the Matthews, whose mortality I really do question at times, took us to the airport.  Nancy packed sandwiches, and sent us off with apples to eat on the plane ride.  Checked in, found our gate, smooth as butterfly milk so far.  I read a National Geographic magazine I'd checked out from the library.  It was about the Great Barrier Reef.  I don't remember all the details, except that it's very long and has taken a long time to form, and they're worried about how it will survive pollution and human interference.  There were lots of pictures of fish I didn't recognize from my limited beta fish background.

Also in the magazine was an article about rock climbing.  There are people a little off their rocker who should have been astronauts but like trees too much.  I mean to say, some people like to push the boundaries of human possibility and climb to great heights without ropes.  If they had been astronauts, they could be out mapping moons and looking at other galaxies instead of taking terrifying photos wherein they are hanging off a cliff by their fingertips.  All the same, it made me want to go rock climbing.

Also also there was an article about Bangladesh and the floods they've been experiencing.  It's a crowded country to begin with, so when the waters rise, it's difficult to fit any more people into the cities.  The farmers' fields are covered in saltwater, which is not an ideal growing environment.  One man they interviewed built his house in pieces and keeps his family's suitcases by the door so when the waters rise, they just take apart the house and move to dry land.  India's building a wall to keep refugees out, and the government is encouraging people to leave the country as a means to uncrowd the cities.

After a while, I finished the magazine and we were flying over jungle.  Yes, jungle.  Australia has jungle.  It's in Queensland, which is like Florida, except in the north, because of the equator.  But I told you that already.  So the plane flew over the mountainous jungle and began its descent into the little town of Cairns.  The Cairns airport is quite small, and we made our way to the shuttle counter to catch a shuttle to our hotel.  We're grownups, so we do things like that.

We made it to the hotel, checked in, chucked our stuff in our room and set off in search of food, as it was dinner time.  What we found was a lot of expensive sea food and Chinese takeout (which always makes me a little nervous).  Being the cheapskate health nuts we are, we split a salad and walked home with a stop at the corner store for some breakfast (oranges, a loaf of bread and yogurt).  Sometimes being a traveling grownup isn't as exhilarating as it's cracked up to be.

L.M. Sunshine