Aussie Expats Update: A Ball, Cookies, Hiking and General Adventures!

Holy schmolys people.

What a doozy of a week and what a lot to cover off on, plus, stacks of pictures (you can thank me later).

As I mentioned in our last update, we had the St Barbara’s Day Ball for James’s Brigade on Friday night. Of course, this necessitated an early slammer of a gym session for the day, some bright red toenail polish, a couple of cheeky G&Ts, and a whole bunch of cheesecake. Despite my promises not to eat as many pieces of cake as last time, I think I ate more (thereby, one might argue, actually keeping my promise. Semantics). I would like, however, to point out that since James’s CO brought me a piece and then he sent someone else over with another piece, that it was hardly 100% my fault that James and I had eight pieces of cake between us.

Hardly surprisingly, Saturday was a bit of a struggle after two big social nights in a row. But we managed to bestir ourselves on Sunday, to take Amy out for a traipse around the Wichita Wildlife Refuge, including a drive to the top of Mt Scott and an amusing tour of the The Holy City of The Wichitas. As you can see, Amy and I were heartbroken at being stuck in jail (I look possessed: that’s my ‘very sad’ face).

I made cookies in the afternoon and since I now have a platform for spruiking this kind of stuff on, I can’t help but think it would be irresponsible of me not to share my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe (seriously, I’ve been using this one for years – try it out, you won’t regret it). Luckily, I didn’t make double the recipe, because I think we made ourselves a little bit sick eating them. Mind you, I say that, but I really wish we still had some cookies.

We actually got out and about quite a bit this week, as James got a last minute invitation from some of his students to go for a hike on Tuesday afternoon. Despite my initial reluctance, I decided to go along and I’m incredibly glad that I did! Not only did we see an impressive array of creatures—a dead opossum, some Texas Longhorn, buffalo, prairie dogs, a bobcat wandering on the road and an elk buck that sprang out of the bushes right in front of us as we were hiking—and climb to the top of the world (or so it seemed), we had an awesome time being fearless adventurers. I don’t think the photos below offer a very good perspective of how far and how high we ended up going: I think our total ascent was in the realm of 150m… So that’s a pretty damn high climb!

I made some tasty sweet potato brownies when we got home, which doesn’t sound great, but honestly, they’re better than the name would imply. They take a fair bit of effort due to the grating of the sweet potato (I went over board and ended up with about 10 cups total), but they’re pretty damn tasty, and really not that bad for you at all. So you can eat as much as you want, right?

Otherwise, our road trip is really taking shape. Hotels and camping sites are completely booked except for Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Santa Fe, which I’m hoping to knock over either today or on the weekend, and then we’re completely done… We just have to pack ourselves up and hit the road, jack! It’s crazy to think that we’re getting so close to heading off on this hectic adventure, but we’re looking forward to it. You may have noticed that I really like James’s company, so I’m stoked for the chance to spend six weeks discovering the US, eating good food, exploring new places and having adventures with my favourite person. And I can’t wait to share some of our exploits with you all!

I’ve been getting some good writing done lately, and have managed to get through about six of my 20 uni books… So we’re making progress, albeit slowly! The aim is to get them all read at least once before we set off, so I’m not hit by an avalanche of work when uni starts back on the 20th of February. Especially since motivation for study is liable to be low when there are so many other cool things to be doing on our trip.

We’ve got a big Saturday planned, with training and socialising… Then hopefully a quiet Sunday at home together. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

–Ana.