Smokey and the Bandicoot

Based on the intense cliff-hanger that was my life when I last updated you fine people (WHAT DO I MEAN, “YOU PEOPLE”?!), I’m guessing that you thought that all was going to be well with our dear car Johnny and the Swedes and I were going to sail off into the Brisbane sunset off to the Whitsundays and live happily ever after. HA! I bet you also believe that the word ‘gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary and that Mitt Romney was actually going to be president. I assure you that I was also hoping that my life was going to turn out to have a Hollywood ending on this one, but as it is, the girls and I will never have a chance to Thelma and Louise-it in that got forsaken maroon sardine can. So it goes.

Also, because of our continued misfortune with the car and coincidentally our continued fortune of meeting unbelievably generous people, I must provide an addendum to the list of Amazing Things that I left off at last time:

Amazing Thing #16: Although our car did not survive, the probability that it would’ve died on the highway stranding us in the middle of what I’m pretty sure is the Appalachians/Deliverance area of Australia is about 127.3%. And had Johnny not stranded us in the middle of nowhere, he would have crashed into something in the middle of nowhere, further screwing us over. Blessing in disguise? Considering I’m not that into spur-of-the-moment 1 car+1 tree demolition derbies at this point in my life, I’m tempted to say yes, it was.

Amazing Thing #17: Still being strand on Saturday night, Aaron set us up with a place to stay at his friend’s house because as a father/good person, he was not a fan of 3 young girls sleeping in a car park in an area he deemed ‘not really safe’ (he clearly didn’t realize that I got my diploma from the School of Hard Knocks). It was a bit awkward when his wife came home from her friend’s birthday party at midnight and found 3 random unkempt backpackers sleeping on her couch. However, she was totally cool with it and we had a great morning with her. Also, it was absolutely hilarious meeting their 13-year-old daughter in the morning, who was sleeping when we got there, half asleep when she got out of bed, and super confused about the situation. C’mon, aren’t you used to waking up having 3 stranded people with a really confusing story in your house!? Shout out Kim and Greg, and thanks again for putting up with the random degenerates that Aaron forced upon you and your family! Oh, and of course shout out to Aaron, who cared about us that much throughout this whole saga!

Amazing Thing #18: Crap. We still have to get rid of this car. Somewhere. In Brisbane. When we don’t know anything about cars. Or have a place to leave it. And have to be 1000 kilometers away STAT. Impossible circumstances? Oh, no worries, just let the other Saint in our lives, Harry, reveal to us that he is some crazy combination of Superman and Mother Teresa. Harry let us pass over the responsibility of Johnny to him, and offered to keep it at his house and sell it for us…even better, since if someone asked me how many cylinders the engine had I would have answered, “um…it has 4 tires.” Holy crap. HOW ARE PEOPLE SO NICE?!

Amazing Thing #19: With nothing else to do, and no McDonald’s to mooch off of all day, we commenced spending our days at Ikea, mooching off of the free internet and buying/consuming an ungodly amount of chocolate and Swedish cookies. Let’s just say that I’ve memorized the Swedish word for chocolate by heart, as well as all the other words associated with it—dark, truffle, cake, biscuit, milk, hazelnut (you get the picture, I’m probably going to have diabetes soon thanks to Ikea…or Swedish diabetes: diabetensctholm). Mikky’s response to seeing us there several days after being with her: “you guys are STILL here!?” And of course, being on the list of thoughtful, generous, caring individuals we’ve encountered, she told us we were more than welcome to stay with her as long as we needed. Oh, and she and her husband had found a car for us that her friend wanted to give away (not sell). WOWIE WOW WOW. Sadly, we were a little gun-shy about acquiring a new vehicle and weren’t thrilled at the idea of taking on another one. Still, AWESOME.

Amazing Thing #20: Refusing to let us sleep in our car on our last night with it, Harry insisted that we sleep at his place after dropping Johnny off at his place(which was a gear-grinding, scary noise-making adventure in itself). This guy has already refused to take any money for the time he’s put into our car/rescuing us, worked on Johnny during his time off, is letting us leave the car with him to deal with (not the most attractive lawn ornament), AND he’s letting us stay at his house. Did I mention that he made us a top-notch continental breakfast in the morning and drove us to the airport to pick up our rental van? Which leads me to my next point…HARRY FOR PRESIDENT 2016. I’m convinced he’ll solve world hunger and eliminate all war.

So where did we leave off on this adventure? Ahh, yes. Our fucked up car and the Ikea Saints looking out for our wellbeing to the fullest extent of the word—which reminds me, have you gone and purchased stuff from Ikea yet? After Harry fiddled with our car and tried fixing it, it turns out that the clutch was way more messed up than originally thought, and fixing it would be well over $1000. After sinking as much money as we did into it, Team Johnny decided that it just wasn’t worth it anymore... and that Johnny must be gay, since he clearly didn’t love us enough to make it work (cue that 80’s gem “Johnny Are You Queer?” by Josie Cotton). Well, cutting our losses is all fine and good and everything, but DAMMIT we’re still stuck in Brisbane and need to get to the Whitsundays in 3 days!

By the grace of God—and by God, I mean of course Ikea, and Aaron coming up with this idea for us—we stumbled upon campervan relocation. Basically a bunch of backpackers and tourists travel in one direction and occasionally they need people to drive the vehicles back to the starting point. At this point, they ask desperate budget backpackers like us to drive them up for $1 a day plus gas costs (and a $1000 bond…i.e. we drove it like it was a newborn child).  So, we sailed off into the sunset in a freakin’ land-boat of a camper—which was pretty swanky, by the way, and could convert into a queen-sized bed, had a full-on kitchen, etc. As a semi-side note, we also named the vehicle Bertha, as she was a big girl, and coincidentally the term ‘berth’ happens to be a ship’s allocated parking spot at a wharf. Shit, we’re clever people. Anyhoo, from the time we picked up the ol’ girl, we had to go 1800 kilometers (about 1100 miles, and 930 nautical miles in terms of Big Bertha’s land boat-ness) starting from noon on Monday to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Well, actually, we had to go 1000 kilometers to drop the girls off in the Whitsundays on time for their cruise, and I had to carry on by my onesie another 800 kilometers to Cairns, where Bertha’s drop off point was…aaaaaand then get myself back down another 800 kilometers to meet up with them when their cruise was over to continue our shenanigans. Mother of God. It’s safe to say that the East cost of Australia was having it’s way with us.

Now, after that bastard Johnny was responsible for us being stranded within the same ~100 mile radius for nearly 3 weeks, when all the while we were JUST trying to get from Surfers Paradise to the Whitsundays, within 1.5 hours we had literally gone farther than we had in the last 3 weeks/504 hours. Now isn’t that mathematical fact a kick in the teeth. But, having said that, ol’ Bertha got us there safely and we actually had a really good road trip—to their credit, Johanna and Lina did not utter one “ARE WE THERE YET!?” Plus, having a full-sized bed for the 3 of us actually allowed us to sleep really comfortably. Safety, no stress about the vehicle’s performance (allow me to mention that I drove it in 3^rd gear for about 45 minutes of highway before I realized it and it was totally fine…oops.), and comfort…something that little Johnny could never give us. I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not size matters on this one.

Now, I don’t know how popular the 80’s movie Smokey and the Bandit is, starring the lovely Sally Fields, Burt Reynolds (who coincidentally starred in Deliverance), Jerry Reed, and co-starring Burt Reynold’s mustache (who coincidentally co-starred in Deliverance). However, if you haven’t seen it, you’re a poor deprived fool and I demand that you go enrich your life and watch it. In the mean time, since I still want your attention and am too immature for you to take a movie break and neglect me, I’ll give you the synopsis: the sexy mustached Burt Reynolds takes on a mission/bet for an inane father-son duo to bootleg a semi-truck full of beer illegally across state lines in a ridiculously small period of time along with his marvellous redneck friend Jerry Lee Lewis. Along the way he picks up runaway bride Sally Fields, is constantly outrunning and making a fool of local police forces, and throws down a farcical amount of trucker lingo. Basically, it’s amazing. The theme song that is playing throughout the film (mostly during the Dukes of Hazzard [which you also need to see]-style police chase scenes) goes like this:

“East bound and down,

Loaded up and truckin’,

We gonna do what they say can’t be done

We got a long way to go

And a short time to get there

I’m East bound just watch ol’ bandit ruuuuun!”

An Emmy-worthy musical performance by Jerry Reed, if you ask me. If you can’t analyze that text properly and failed 8^th grade English, the essence of the song is, well, having to drive really friggin’ far in a really friggin’ short period of time to meet a deadline. OH-EM-GEE, that’s exactly what Lina, Jo, and I had to do…holy appropriate analogy, Batman! Thus, we have a new theme song of our life:

East coast bound and down

Loaded up and sailin’

We gonna do what in the last 3 weeks couldn’t be done

We got a painfully long way to go

And an even more painfully short time to get there

At least we’re finally in a car that ruuuuuns!

Although we successfully completed our mission, unlike the crazy cast of Smokey and the Bandit we sadly did not get a semi-truck full of beer in the end or accept a new mission to drive up the coast to get New England clam chowder. Oh well, I wasn’t up to that much driving or wearing a cowboy hat anyways. But the moral of the story is that the girls got to their cruise by their deadline, had an amazing time, and I was able to get the van up to Cairns on time without scratching, denting, flat-tiring, crashing, scraping, red-lining, engine-killing, bumping, chipping, hitting a pregnant nun (10 points, by the way), breaking, flattening, dinging, burning, or in any way damaging it. Aaaand I managed to find an awesome unstructured hippie artist co-op to WWOOF at while I was in Cairns for a few days so that I didn’t have to pay for accommodation…double plus good, as I’m nearing broke!

For everyone who consistently follows this blog scthuff that I do occasionally, I’m sure that you’re realizing that this little adventure fits right into my completely unplanned life that I’m trying to live. Yes, it was a little taxing at times, and maaaaybe my Daddy had to accept a phone call from a crying, stressed out, overly tired, stranded-at-Ikea-without-much-of-a-plan girl at 3 in the morning, but as it is, everything worked out and I met some epic people along the way. Therefore, still living my life with this day-to-day plan. I’m finding each day that I do this, I meet more amazing people who are all having an impact on my life, whether or not it is big (Harry, Aaron, Mikky, etc) or small (random gas station attendant who lets us use the microwave for our oatmeal in the morning). No matter how great these impacts and interactions are, I’ve found that the endless generosity and kindness of strangers is what has been the most inspiring for me, and I’d like to keep it going. Even the people who aren’t technically helping me out in anyway are still important—I’m interacting with great individuals and getting to know some real characters, which is so exciting!

Also, if you haven’t put 2 and 2 together, a bandicoot is an Australian animal. Our adventure was comparable to the Smokey and the Bandit movie. Smokey and the Bandicoot. Get it? OH MY GOD I’M SO WITTY. Gentlemen, although my dowry may not include a mass of sizeable pigs or cattle, it does come with a chubby cat answering to the name of Punkin, a handsome collection of Hallmark ornaments, and a kick-ass father-in-law.