Leaving Kestrel to Australia

This summer has gone by very fast getting ready for our trip to Australia. The date came before I was ready and I left Peggy, Sue, Beemer and Simon all by themselves this past Friday August 31st. It will be a month in a half before I see my wife and 2 in a half months before I see my dogs. This is the longest that I will be separated from them an d I will miss them every minute. Peggy is left with the task of having hour belongins packed and shipped to Australia and to storage. In addition of taking care of the dogs and shipping them to Australia in mid October.

Leaving my friends at Kestrel was not easy either. We have only been 8 months at Kestrel but in this short time we have met great people and acquire wonderful friendships. The past week in a half have been full of farewells, dinners, "milkins and grazing". My guess is that we are going back to Kestrel as soon as this assignment is completed. I am going to have to go on a big wine diet in order to loose the pounds gained due to all these wonderful friends.

This past week was absolutely hectic not only packing up for my trip but on Tuesday we sold the Honda CRV and on Friday morning we sold the BMW. The motorcycle was shown to a couple of people but my guess is that I will keep it until I get back to Kestrel. I finally finished packing for my trip at 11:00 AM when Peggy, thanks to Peggy, reviewed the tickets and let me know that my flight was leaving at 2:30 and not at 4:00 PM as I have mistakenly read the tickets. I have been planning to take the plane for an hour flight and instead ended up going up for 20 minutes. The highlight of the flight was that I rolled the plane 4 times. This is the first time that I have done it by myself. It was absolutely great. It was very sad to leave Clotilde in storage for the next 2 years. She will be well taken care by our good friends at Kestrel.

I left San Antonio at 3:00 Pm Friday and here it is Sunday 2:00 AM Victoria time in Cairns, Australia. It is 5PM Sunday in Cairns and still have to fly 2 more hours to get to Gove (Nhulunbuy). It is a long 42 hour trip. Oh well, it will be a great experience. more to come later...