El Easter Breako, dias uno y dos

Tried to add some culture into the title by incorporating other languages into it (not sure on how well it worked yet).

This update will come in two parts, representing two weeks of Easter Break (yes, it was nice; yes, I actually did work over it). May as well start the story by describing the pre-break madness with tests and papers and what not. Thursday was an econ test, Friday had a 4-page computer architecture paper, and then a 2500-word history paper due before we left. I won't bore you with many of the details, but the history paper deserves a mention, as it was written in Grinnell-style. I woke up Sunday morning to write it (I had done the reading) (also note that the IES trip to the outback left Monday) (the parentheses serve no purpose other than to make 3). I wrote about 600 words by noon, and was feeling confident. Unfortunately, I wrote maybe 100 words all afternoon. After dinner, I managed to get to 1000 by 9 pm, when I left to go watch 300 with some other Lincolnites. Got back to the computer lab with three, large, 'Strong' iced coffees and started working again at midnight. Seven hours and one and a half coffees later, the paper was done, with a word count of 2300 and change, plus two people proofreading it (one of whom was Jeff Witz, also pulling an all-nighter). Left the lab at 7:03 am, showered, packed (from scratch), and made it out to get picked up by 7:20 am. Oh, and I didn't forget anything.

First day was a fair amount of traveling, driving up to Melrose near the Flinders Ranges. After unloading our gear, we drove up to see Mount Remarkable and hiked the Alligator Gorge trail. No, I don't have explanations for any of the names. The walk was quite pretty, but also fairly uneven and painfully steep at parts. After dinner, went and saw the Melrose courthouse and police station, which is apparently one of the oldest in Australia. Run by an elderly gentleman who kept making random, semi-humorous comments such as "Anyone know what this is? Girls? This is an old rolling ruler." We couldn't figure out why the girls should know this, but he made a similar comment as we got to old housewife things, like a wash tub. In any case, we all slept very well in the bunkhouse that night.

That night in the bunkhouse would be the last time I would sleep indoors for the remainder of the trip. Second day was up again at 7:00 am. More driving soon found us in the 'outback,' though apparently we saw the outback the greenest it has been in some time, as it had rained a few days prior to our trip (more on this later). A few hours of driving got us to Mt. Ive Station, where we set up shop once more. Unloading the trailer, we drove off on a dusty trail, red dirt following our every move. We then proceed to hike around near the station, where the landscape reminded me of the Black Hills in ND - sparse, scrubby vegetation. The flies also deserve some mention, as the were everywhere. The trick, we learned, was to let them remain on your hat/chest/back, as then they wouldn't swarm your face. Jeff Witz had some troubles with the flies - he wound up with a wash towel like a bandanna across his face in addition to hat and shades, just to keep them away from his face.

That night, we Americans had our first introduction to swags. Think of a sleeping bag for a sleeping bag. Ours were canvas sheathes with a zipper down the side and a small sleeping pad, on which we could put our sleeping bags. Then you zip them up, with the top and bottom open, and it keeps your sleeping bag from getting covered in dirt (there was plenty of it) and from wet from dew / rain (not that big of a threat, but still possible). In short, there were awesome.

While I know I said this would be a two part update at the top, I have realized that doing that would require massive posts, and most of you don't have the attention spans to make it through it all (Grinnellians, I'm looking at you). As a result, I have altered the title slightly, and will continue with a staggered post scheme tomorrow. Cheers.