We have taken our first BIG ride on the bikes. With Monday being a public holiday, we decided to use the Sunday to go down to Pebbly Beach & check whether the kangaroos were still in evidence. It's normally a 2-hour drive each way & I discovered that what used to be a rather boring drive becomes an action packed ride. Most of the time, Julie leads so that she can set the pace, although she prefers for me to lead so that she can just follow. Trouble is, she then lags behind & I look in the mirror to find her about 300 metres back with a bloody great 4WD right up her bum. Now THAT's scary!

Anyway, we just set our own pace, which is usually around the speed limit but about 5-10 K below the average traffic speed, so we have become quite adept at pulling off the road at point where there is enough road to pull off onto. The 2-hour drive turned into about 4.5 hours, but that also included meal stops & smoke breaks, which became necessary when the traffic was particularly vicious. At one point, we tried stopping on a very steep downhill grade & discovered that putting the bike on either the kick stand or the main stand doesn't work too well when it's facing downhill. Lesson learned!

Once again, the wildlife was there, although most of the birds were up in the trees & we had to walk down to the beach to find the kangaroos. Nice to know they're always there somewhere, as it is part of the grand plan for when April & Mike arrive with Duncan & their friend Sam in February, that Pebbly Beach will be one of the stop son their first day, just as it was for Julie.

The ride home was a little less eventful & we found that going up the mountain was a whole lot easier than going down. Coming into Braidwood, we were full on into the afternoon sun, so it became a meal break while the sun went down & we came on in from there in darkness, with me firmly in the lead until we hit the familiar territory of the freeway. So now we've had our first full day out, we are looking forward to many more. It certainly boosted our confidence. I also noticed that my "chicken strips" had diminished a little. Those are the unmarked areas on the sides on the rear tyre where the tyre hasn't hit the road. The size of the chicken strip is inversely proportional to the amount the bike has been leaned over in corners.

We have also joined the Ulysses Club, whose motto is "Grow old disgracefully", & look forward to going on day trips with them as well. The first of which was a great success. A trip on some highways & back roads out to Young for lunch. Nice bunch of people & man, can they move! A full map of our trips, both past & current, is starting to take shape on this page.

We are now a little over 2 weeks into Julie's quit smoking program, fuelled primarily on will-power, with just a small amount of help from some chewing gum. Funny - we went out on an impromptu evening "out" with several people from her work. We think it was the funny green stuff in a shot glass to follow the tequila down that was their undoing. I figure that anything alcoholic that has no smell is dangerous! Anyway, I was very proud (later) of the fact that although Julie bummed a couple of smokes during the evening, she continued on the quit program the next day.

And April called her mother at work to tell her that it was just 4 months, x days, hours & minutes before they get here & she's counting down!

Meanwhile, we've been doing some "counselling" online with a young Mum in Idaho, who lost one of her twin baby daughters at age 2 months nearly a year ago. I got some fabulous news today that just HAD to go in here - she has been preparing the dreaded first letter to the recipient family & heard from Valerie (our contact at Life Center NorthWest) that the recipient baby's parents were looking forward to receiving a photo of the twins, which means that actual contact with them is a very real possibility. I'm still pumped!