25 May 2011

Perth

He’s huge.  If he were a dog he’d be a Great Dane.  We’re sharing this pier south of Perth with him, this enormous pelican.  Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that he’s sharing his pier with us.

It’s nearly dusk and we are dragging, having risen at 4 am this morning for our sunrise flight to Perth.  We are here for a two week road trip of Southwest Australia, most of which we planned on the flight here which means we really haven’t planned much of it at all save for picking out what we believe to be the top three areas we need to hit by skimming the Western Australia book between in-flight snoozes and chapters of “Bird By Bird”, my current read.  Apparently Anne Lamott, the author, doesn’t believe in overly stressing about a detailed plan either, as she so aptly stated in her book: “You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way.  You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.”  I couldn’t agree with you more, Anne.  (Now if only I could remember that every time I feel anxious about the future … but that’s another blog for another day, or maybe something that doesn’t need to be aired on the internet at all.)

What we had planned in advance for this trip was Schroeder, our Apollo campervan that will be our home for the next two weeks.  We call him Schroeder in honor of the Peanuts theme we started back in New Zealand with our van Lucy, who was followed in Tasmania by our campervan Charlie.  Now we have Schroeder.  He feels like a Schroeder, a little intense and perhaps a bit standoffish but with the possibility of breaking into a lively tune at any given moment.