kylepus

I still have a letter that I wrote to Noir but forgot to send it to her in the madness of being caught up in customs. I have many, many pictures to accompany the letter but no time to upload them now as I'm getting ready to snuggle up to a very scantily clad mellylou. You're so jealous.

Dear Noir,

Sorry it has taken so long, yet again to write. I'm currently on my
next leg of the trip to see Mellylou.

I'm not positive where I left off, so I included a picture of me on
the Polar Sea Cruise. That would the the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. If
I already sent this on, disregard. Sometimes it seems traveling is a
blur.

So, leaving the Ice was fairly easy according to Kay. We did not
encounter any delays due to weather or mechanical failure, which was
pretty exciting to her. We hopped on a plane North, and in about 6
hours, found ourselves back in Christchurch New Zealand. First things
first, we cleared customs, and then found the land of fresh beer,
Bailey's. None of us were really feeling the need to stay out all
night, so we headed to the Windsor Bed and Breakfast early. What a
great place to stay!

All told we spent about 5 days in New Zealand making travel
arrangements, and seeing friends of Kay and Neel's. What a freakish
group these Ice people are. You'd love them.

After scoring our next plane tickets we were off to Sydney. Our first
night we ended up staying in a place out in the burbs. It was really
the first time Kay and I had been on a inner city train, so neither of
us were really amused. It was packed, and raining. We did find the
hotel, but not before we had to hump our luggage up 3 flights of
stairs. Kay's vein in her forehead looked like it was going to bust.
Neel had to make it up by buying us dinner.

The following day, we were off and running, but to the Shangri La,
where we would stay for a few days. You can see Ferd and I in a few
of the photos over looking the Sydney Harbor. Wow, what a busy
harbor. We had taken a River Cat boat to get to the city center,
where on the boat there was a man that sounded like he was going to
take us across the river Styx. Really. Neel needs to do the
imitation some time. Anyway, we made it to the hotel fine, and since
we had time before checking in, we found some food on the harbor
itself.

Once we got checked in, we were pretty much at the lap of luxury. Kay
freaked Neel and I both out by kicking off her shoes, grabbing a pair
of tongs, and screaming she was a lobster, followed by jumping up on
the bay window, followed by more running around in the room, followed
by jumping on the bed, and falling down in a fit of giggles. It was
just as she had landed, the bellhop came into the room. We were all
laughing so hard we couldn't talk, and the bellhop started laughing
too. He obviously knew she was up to no good. She also found a phone
right next to the toilet. I guess for all those Presidential phone
calls one might get whilst on the crapper. She dissolved into a fit
of laughter over the whole thing.

The following day, we headed out to buy some opals. Buy they did too!
Kay scored some nice ones for her father, and Neel was busy with
ideas of early Christmas shopping. It was cool to get educated about
them, and to see how varied they can be. After we got done, we headed
over to the Aquarium, and poked around. There were cool things to be
seen, but most of all was the tubes that you could walk in under a
seal exhibit and a shark exhibit. That was grand to see things under
the sea. Kay was pretty enthralled.

On the day we checked out, we headed over to the Tonga Zoo to see the
animals. Kay and I were fairly taken with a few of the animals, but
we didn't shoot any pictures. We just couldn't get them to pose, no
matter how much I might have taunted them about their lineage. So a
few hours later, we were getting ready to hop on a plane to Tasmania.
Kay had security problems, they accused her of trying to bring a sharp
object on the plane. Point of fact, it was a bronze hair bun holder
in the shape of a rose, she had in her carry on. I thought she was
going to loose it. After we were at the gate is when I realized that
she had a worse hair toy. A sharpened lead pencil holding her hair
up, that she passed through security with. THAT would have done far
more damage. Anyway, she was aggravated by the whole thing. So we
bought her a beer and sat her down. As we were sitting in the food
court, (this is all past security mind you) we noticed a children's
toys stored, aptly named KABLAM! Irony?

We arrived in to Hobart, to a hotel Kay booked on line. What a
fucking pit. I thought she was going to cry. It really was bad, so
bad that we nicknamed it Satan's Urethra Hotel. Fortunately she only
booked us in for 2 nights, and we survived each one. After that we
moved to a better hotel that we weren't afraid of the floor caving in,
or finding dead hookers under the mattress. We took in a wine tour of
Morilla wines, and did some general bumming around the town. We
finally located a bookstore with a Tasmania lonely planet, and we
started plotting our next round of adventures.

Kay had intended on doing more caving, but there was none to be had
that could be found. I know she was fairly disappointed, but honestly
I was relieved. I'm not sure that an octopus of my above groundness
would have dug being in the mud and below. Maybe I'm wrong, but....so
in view of that we rented a car and headed to Eagle's Hawk Neck. It
was a beautiful place to be. We stayed there for a few days, did some
hiking, and more wine sampling. We debated on just staying there for
the duration, but the wander lust kicked in.

Off to Swansea, where we stayed during the remainder of our holiday.
As Kay put it, it was in striking distance to everything we wanted to
do. So we booked into a nice little hotel, and we were off and
running. We went hiking into Wine Glass bay, and played on the beach
for a few hours. I tell you, that hike is not an easy one.
Definitely worth it, but I made Kay carry me most of the trip. We saw
wild Wallabee's on the hike, and Kay spotted lots of little lizards.
On the sandy white beach, the water was on the cold side. Neel was
the only one of us willing to get in to it. Kay and I sat on the
beach together, munching on some nuts and getting harassed by the
local birds. After the Skua's in Antarctica, these little gulls were
nothing.

We also visited a reserve which is where the animal photos came from.
Kay was terribly intimidated by the Kangaroo's. They were definitely
bigger, and had an inkling to take things from a person if they could.
After her struggling with a roo to get her camera back, I opted for
hiding in the pocket of her pants. She had to fight for the camera, I
would hate to see what they would do to me. Though some sweet sweet
octopus lovin might mellow them out...

Anyway, we saw Tasmanian Devils, Wombats, Wallabee's, Koalas, Deer,
Snakes, and got chased by a group of black swans. It was amusing all
the way around. We also saw a lot of Echidna's on the sides of the
road. Kay couldn't pronounce the name, so she called them enchiritos,
after the Taco Bell snack. She now has a stuffed version of an
Echidna, named aptly enchirito.

We drove up one morning to a town on the North Coast. No sooner had
we arrived, then we all looked at each other and said, nah. So we
drove all the way back. The drive alone was just gorgeous, and we
weren't interested in a bigger city. So we ate and drank and pretty
much had a grand time in Swansea...until...

Kay had been violently ill for days. She came down with something (we
had to boil water in Swansea so I'm not surprised), and Neel and I
begged her both to go to the hospital. She had one bad night where
she was so fevered and hallucinating, that I thought sure we would
have to take her in, because we couldn't keep any fluids in her. But
true to stubborn form, she kept fighting it tooth and nail, up until
the day we left. Projectile anything does not keep that woman down.

While we were hanging out in the hotel, Neel was cleaning out his
travel wallet, and he started to panic. What he was panicking about,
was the fact that we did not realize we had a plane to catch in 4
hours. However it happened, there was a suddenly flurry of packing,
and throwing things in the car. Kay had set my stuff aside to send up
to Mellylou via the mail. Well, come to find out, the Post was
closed. I wasn't too disappointed, because it would mean more time in
Sydney.

So we packed the car, and started the drive back to Hobart. We did
make the flight in time, which was great. We made it in to Sydney,
back to the Shangri La. Since Kay was not moving too well physically
from being so sick, we took it easy. We found a nice place on the
waterfront to eat, and kept a low profile.

I joined Kay and Neel back on the flight to LAX, because I thought she
might need me at some point to help her out. So we prepared to hop on
the plane, and come back. I'm glad I did. They confinscated a bottle
of champagne, that she was bringing back for Neel's mother. I thought
she was going to loose it. Fortunately, I think by being there with
her, I kept her from totally going bonkers. All of us finally got on
the plane, and had an unbelievably long flight back in.

We made it through customs quickly for LAX, and was relaxing in the
lounge, when Neel freaked out. We had missed the flight to Denver.
The time that we had all set our watches to was incorrect, by 1 hour.
So we ended up spending 6 hours in the Admiral's lounge in LAX.
Fortunately the airline people were nice and had us rebooked without
any problems. This time they went out of their way to make sure we
got on the plane, which was good. I'm still confused as to why they
didn't get us on it in the first place, particularly since you have to
check in to the lounge. But whatever. We made it.

I was only in Denver long enough to help Kay score an apartment, and
Neel, myself and Kay, had everything moved in, only 48 hours after
arriving in Denver. It was hard to say goodbye to her and Neel, but I
really had to get back to see Mellylou.

When you see Kay, give her a squeeze, and tell her to kiss the octopus
taint. That'll get a reaction.

XXXO
Kyle