Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there was a plan to blow the dead whale in South Australia up. Remember the whale that tourists were walking on when the white pointer sharks were feeding on it? Yep, well they went to explode it.

Now this was one of the more amusing things I’d read, especially because they apparently could not find any information about people blowing up dead whales. Have they never heard of the internet?

One of the most famous sites out there on the net is about the exploding of a dead whale! Go to www.yahoo.com and type in “exploding whale”, and the first links that appear are all relevant! Duh.

In any event, like the whale on the pages just mentioned, the police of South Australia also failed to achieve a successful detonation of the marine mammal. Instead of sinking it, they just put a dent in the side, and there is still a very large dead whale bobbing out there off the coast.

Those who ignore history are deemed to repeat it…

=====

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2001/08/01/FFX3JUCKSPC.html

Blubber that just won’t go away

Wednesday 1 August 2001

Fierce white pointer sharks have been attacking it for more than a week and on Monday evening the South Australian bomb squad tried to make it go away, but a southern right whale off the coast remains defiantly afloat.

“This has never been attempted before, never in Australia,” said SA Transport’s Arndrae Luks, of the attempt to sink the rotting whale. “It may have been done elsewhere but we cannot find any evidence of it so it’s a learning curve for us.”

For the first week after its death from unknown causes the huge whale was a tourist attraction off Cape Jervis. Hundreds of locals and visitors chartered boats to watch up to 20 white pointer sharks feeding from it.

Last weekend the whale was towed four nautical miles from The Pages islands near Kangaroo Island where on Monday police divers inserted explosives in an attempt to sink it.

But before that the feeding sharks, which are protected, had to be shooed away, which meant the carcase had to be buzzed.

“We made absolutely sure (there were no white pointers around),” Mr Luks said. “We sped around and around the carcase in motor boats, driving anything away.”

A police diver then went into the whale, extracting an estimated four to five shopping bags full of entrails and inserting detonators of a strength sufficient to blow through a half-metre concrete wall.

Instead of opening up a hole that would fill with water and sink it, the explosion made a tiny dent.

The whale’s incredibly buoyant blubber and oil-filled bones absorbed the rest of the impact and yesterday the carcase was still bobbing around.

“What we have done is speed up the decomposition,” Mr Luks said. “It has enabled the sharks and other scavengers to get in there and do their job … they’re the garbage collectors of the sea.”

Experts estimate the whale, left unexploded, would have taken four months to rot away. With the help of this week’s blubbery implosion, the decomposition period has been reduced to several weeks.

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Currently cruising the back roads of Ohio, just getting a feel for the scene. We finally managed to see a game of baseball the other day, when we drove across the state to see the Cincinatti Reds play the Florida Marlins.

For the first four innings, the Marlin were dominating the game 3-0. The crowd was pretty quiet, and we were worried we’d wasted our money. Suddenly, the Reds got a home run and everyone went nuts. On a roll, the next inning, the Reds pulled 5 home runs out of nowhere, and everyone was screaming, leaping up out of their seats, and we were right there with them, cheering and screaming along with them all. Kind of amusing to think that we cannot stand sports in general, and yet, we were so into this game, it was a matter of life and death for the Reds to win. At the end, we went down and ran the bases, since they let anyone who wanted to onto the stadium ground, so that was even more fun.

In other news, we found the very worst campground in North America. We only stay at the cheaper ones, but this one was so bad, we had to go ask for a refund and didn’t really leave very happy at all. It was the Woodland Campground in Somerset and it was absolutely awful.

1. Told to pick any site in the campground, but when we chose a site, found we could not get tent pegs into the ground due to a couple of feet of gravel just under the surface. Were told in the morning we had chosen our site badly and we should have chosen one in a different area, at the bottom of a hill. We didn’t choose those sites because it had rained every day for the past week and we didn’t want a midnight flood. Also, we confirmed at the time that the site we chose was okay to tent in and were told it was.
2. No hot water in the showers. The choice was “cold” or “very cold”. When I went and spoke to the woman in charge, she refused to believe that the water was cold and also refused to walk with me to the bathhouse to see for herself. She would only go there in “2 or 3 hours time when I am finished doing other things”.
3. We were using the washing machine, and had it set for “cold wash, cold rinse” but the owner of the park changed the settings on it to be “warm wash, warm rinse” without asking us. We could not figure out how it had changed until a resident of the park told us she did not do laundry there because the owner always changed the settings and interfered.
4. No latches on many of the shower doors, which swung outward to expose you to the public.
5. No latches on many of the toilet doors, which swung outwards to expose you to the public.
6. No lights in the bathroom except grotty skylights which meant it was very hard to see.
7. Two of the showers in the women’s actually had no water come out of them when Di turned on the taps.
8. The dryer in the laundry was actually a “spinner” since it did not dry any of the clothes we put in there. We put four lots of 35c through it, and the clothes were still wet, not just damp. The owner refused to believe this could be the case since “it was working fine yesterday when I put two shower curtains through it and they dried”. Those of us with brains (ie: all but the campground owner) may realise that shower curtains tend to dry very quickly, and probably would be dry in 12 minutes of hanging on a line, and, if the machine really worked, you would not put shower curtains into it.

All in all, it was a terrible park, and when I went to seek a refund, the woman in charge refused to give me a full refund (we got $8 of the $16 back) since:

1. “We don’t just give out refunds to everyone”
2. “You must not have been putting the right money in the dryer” (this one was a little hard to fathom, since the coin operated machines do not work at all unless the right money is inserted)
3. “You’re from Australia and obviously don’t understand how things work.”
4. “You went to the bathroom and I believe that is worth $8 for that facility.”

So, in terms of where to camp - DO NOT CAMP AT THE WOODLANDS CAMPGROUND IN SOMERSET, PENNSYLVANIA.

In over 5 months of travelling through 37 states of the USA and 3 provinces of Canada, it is the very worst campground we have been to!

In more positive news, we did go to the local truckstop that allowed us to shower at half-price in sympathy of the poor treatment we had.

Since then though, our time has been more fun. Last night we went and checked out an outdoor drama called “Tecumpseh”. About 15 minutes in, it began to pour rain and they put everything on hold for a short time, but then it began again. Definitely worth going to - a great story about an Indian brave that almost defeated the white people settling the USA, and really well-performed and interesting. We did not even know it existed until we stopped at the campground last night and the person registering us mentioned it, then mentioned a discount coupon. So, if you want to go, and save money, go on a Monday night. It only costs $8 per adult, not $14, which is a decent saving indeed. The coupon was in the local Advertiser paper, which is a free publication, and the show is definitely worth checking out. We thought it would be kind of bad, but it was done very well and we left, along with everyone else, having seen a great show.

From here to Columbus to catch up with a colleague met in Brazil at the IGC, and discuss lots of exciting research stuff.

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I see dead people.

If there’s one thing we’ve noticed about the state of Pennsylvania, there are a *LOT* of cemeteries. Many of them are where you’d least expect them, such as right in the middle of a downtown city block. It’s very odd.

Spent the morning trying to find free places online to list the van for people to buy, but there is a fee for a lot of sites, we’ve found. Fair enough, since they are providing a service, but also, many of them are useless to us because we have to provide a phone number and address before we can register as users. So, it’s been a little frustrating. If anyone knows of any free US-based car selling sites on the net, drop us a line because we’d love to know about them!

In other news, we spent a diverting hour in a Borders bookstore yesterday and learned many things about Australia we never knew, through the use of the guide books on sale.

For example, visitors to Melbourne are amused and often repelled by the fact that the first question asked by locals is not “what do you do for a living?” but “what school did you go to?”. The preferred answer is “Melbourne Grammar”, or “Grammar” to the initiated.

When it comes to Universities, the best one to go to is “The Shop”, also known as “Melbourne University”. Newer universities such as La Trobe and Monash don’t even rate.

This was all very interesting, especially since in all the time that Di and I have been at the Uni, we’ve never ever heard it referred to as “The Shop”.

Then again, another travel book was specifically written to tell people what to do if attacked by a crocodile or snake. Not sure why it took a whole book. Here’s our version :

1. If attacked by a crocodile, scream a lot. You don’t have a lot of time left to live, so you might as well use those vocal chords for the last time.
2. If attacked by a snake, it’s because you were trying to be Steve Irwin and poked it with a stick, wasn’t it? You deserve to die for that. Possibly in a nastier way than just a snake bite, but it will have to do.

On that cheery note, we’re off to do something else now…

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Yes, we’re at the home of bad chocolate, slap bang in the middle of Pennsylvania right now.

We just went on the tour of Hershey Chocolate World and got the free sample. We were pretty hungry, and we figured we’d give it another try (the first stuff was so foul, we gave up in disgust). We should not have bothered - it was foul too.

It’s a sad day when you are rejecting *free* chocolate…

The factory is an absolute madhouse, by the way. I highly recommend anyone considering becoming a parent to go here and stand for just two minutes and listen to the screams and crying of all the children who are tired and/or hot and/or bothered and/or not getting bought expensive souvenirs. Evil little blighters. Perhaps this could be part of the Sex Ed programs in high schools, in an effort to encourage abstinence?…*grin*

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Okay, Di and I have just fallen about in hysterics in the library reading the news from back home. We are currently wondering whether or not we should be going home…

Also, for all those people that thought we were going to the USA to find some really stupid people - clearly there are plenty of them back home as well…

This, from the front page of www.news.com.au is what amused us so much.

=====

Dead whale law mooted

From AAP 24jul01

WHALE watching has taken a new twist in South Australia, prompting the state government to consider a review of marine mammal laws.

Since last week hundreds of people have flocked to see white pointer sharks feast on the the carcass of a dead southern right whale near Cape Jervis, about 100km south of Adelaide.

Local boat operators have cashed in, taking paying customers to the site for a closer look.
Some onlookers have even patted the great whites as they circled the whale while others have walked on the carcass of the southern right.

Such behaviour has alarmed the state’s Environment Minister Iain Evans, who said said today he was shocked at the level of disrespect some people had for their own safety.

“I am also appalled by the bizarre behaviour of walking across the back of dead whales or, for that matter, patting a great white shark while it is feeding,” Mr Evans said. “These creatures are not toys.

“In the case of the great white, they can be extremely dangerous and it is clear the state government will need to look at changing the law in order to protect people too stupid to protect themselves.”

At present, marine regulations only prevent people from coming within 100 metres of a live whale.

No such restrictions apply to dead whales and local police have said they are virtually powerless to act.

Mr Evans said he would ask his department to consider a similar exclusion zone for dead whales.

“It may be the only way we can keep sightseers from getting so close that they put themselves in danger of other marine animals,” he said.

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Well, we made it into Canada and out again with no real hassles. Once again, the border guard accused us of living in Louisiana since we owned a van with those plates, and told us that we were clearly working and living in Louisiana - “it’s a no brainer”. I would have liked to say something about “no brainer” to him, but I restrained myself.

We also spoke to the INS recently and they told us to speak to the border guard who told us that it was not up to them at all whether we could get a new I-94 form. This means that we will be departing the USA from New York City on August 21st, since that is the limit of our stay.

We had a little more fun with the van (broken fan belt) which, after the towing was accounted for, came to US$180. Bugger. Word of advice : never break down in the unpopulated area of the upper peninsula of Michigan.

In Canada, we saw Niagara Falls, but were disappointed to see nobody going over it in a barrel. I was expecting Diana to volunteer, but she remained silent on that front.

Going westward once more to Ohio, and then back to the east coast. It feels a little odd to be in the countdown part of the North America phase - been so long here that it feels like we - gasp - live here. And the INS certainly thinks we do, for some stupid reason.

I wonder if any of these people ever go overseas on holiday, and have to deal with living on a budget or not. Then again, it is such an ordeal to get back into the USA, perhaps they would not risk leaving it themselves?…*wry grin*

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The van is behaving itself properly now, and the fuel efficiency has even gotten better, which is good. We averaged 19 miles per gallon yesterday, which is the best it’s been for the whole trip. Hurrah. We shall have to wait and see if it is a permanent thing, but perhaps replacing the computer (which would be controlling fuel injection) has improved the fuel efficiency?

In any event, we are going to risk the fun and games of the border once more and go into Canada. We have spent quite a bit of time on the phone with the INS making sure of things before we got to here, so we are hoping it all goes smoother and the one cranky border guard we encountered was an isolated case.

If not, we only risk having our car impounded and being deported from the USA. We’ve been to Vegas and we never gambled with stakes this high…

So, hopefully all will remain good with the world. At this point in time, it appears we will be departing the USA on Aug 21, since that is when our allowed time runs out, and there seems to be no chance of an extension.

In essence, the time required to get an extension means we should have filed for it *BEFORE* we were rear-ended in Utah. Bother.

Oh well. We’re going to go see some water going over a little drop. We hear that going to Niagara Falls at the peak of summer tourism means that there will be very few people there, and we’ll have the place to ourselves.

Yeah. Right.

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Yes, believe it or not, we are back in Goodhue once more. It’s just one of those little places on the map like Denver, Colorado and Mojave, California that seem to keep sucking us back toward it for one reason or another.

As you all know, we got the starter motor replaced in the van in Hawley, Minnesota, but it seems that it was not the problem at all. US$200 down the drain, it would appear.

A few days later, we had to replace the alternator in the van because it drained the battery overnight. There’s another US$300 - really hurt to pay that, knowing we wasted money at Hawley.

We went to get it, and it would not start. Turned out the starter solenoid was in need of replacement - just what did the people at Hawley do? Another US$20 which was not too bad, but not good either.

Finally, the van was fixed. We got in it, drove a few hundred feet and found there was no power in it any more. Took it back and it turns out the computer in the van had gone kaput. You’ve got to be kidding! So, over the last few days, they replaced the computer at a cost of US$215.

We are now back on the road (we hope!), having just spent US$750 in the past week or so on the van. Not what we wanted to spend money on, especially since we are only going to own it for a few more weeks. Still, without spending the money on it, we were not able to go anywhere…*sigh*

Fortunately, we were staying with Chuck and Carol - friends of ours who came to visit Australia on a dairy tour about five years ago and they very generously loaned us a spare car so we could do something for a few days.

It was an old rusted Pontiac that they are about to donate to a church because it’s life expectancy is over. Their instructions to us about it were that if it broke down, it was not a big deal, they would come and get us, and just donate it to the nearest church to where it broke down.

With a mixture of trepidation and a desperate desire to keep going, we took the car and it turned out to be a very zoomy, fuel-efficient vehicle indeed. Never had a problem with it during the four days we borrowed it, and we were surprised by it’s good performance.

As for where we went, it was another case of us planning to be somewhere and then winding up about 600 miles away due to a little meandering.

We left Goodhue, with the intention of going via Iowa to Chicago, then back through the lower part of Wisconsin to Goodhue.

We actually went to Iowa, then up through Wisconsin to northern Minnesota then back down to Goodhue. A very different route. So what did we see?

Our stop in Iowa was one of a somewhat spiritual nature. As the saying goes “If you build it, they will come.”

They built it.

We came.

Yes, we went to the Field of Dreams movie site which is still a large baseball diamond cut out of a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. It was interesting to see because I had read of the dispute going on between neighbours in the area.

Basically, when the field was built, the centre and right field parts of the diamond were built on the Lansing property, and the left field was built on the neighbouring property. As soon as the movie was over, the neighbours ripped up the baseball field they owned and then replanted it with corn. The Lansing’s kept their part intact and built up a little tourist thing out of it.

An investment group saw the potential in it, bought the neighbour’s part of the field back, fixed it up and set up a rival souvenir stand in left field. So now, the two neighbours are at odds, since the Lansing’s feel they built the business up and the others came in and stole part of the business from them. Do they have a right to feel slighted? We think “yes and no”. Clearly, they built up the business, but the other part of the field is on the neighbour’s farm and they have the right to do what they want with it.

From the Field of Dreams, we headed to the Effigy Mounds National Park where the native Americans built large mounds of earth in the shape of bears and eagles by the banks of the Mississippi from 800-1200AD. Very interesting to see, but there was a guide book we did not get told about so we missed a little. Found a ranger on the way down though, so got a 1-on-1 lesson which was better probably.

When we got to Wisconsin (unofficial state motto : “Man, Do We Love Cheese!”), we went up the centre to Barron for the night where we introduced ourselves to the local mosquito population. It went something along the lines of…

Us: “Hello mosquitoes, we are Australian.”

Mosquitoes: “We do not care. You are our dinner.”

Us: “That is not manners!”

Mosquitoes: “We do not care. You are our dinner.”

Us: “Bugger.”

And so, we got eaten alive until Di locked herself in the tent and demanded I drive to the nearest supermarket to buy repellent. Neither of us had seen mozzies that bad - ever!

At Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, we stood at the source of the Mississippi River the next day. There was a little line of rocks there which you could walk over and we sat for a while, watching people slip off them and suddenly end up shin-deep in water, filling their socks and shoes. Rather amusing.

Yesterday, as we came southward once more to the 9th Annual Minnesota Alfalfa and Forage Expo, we stopped in Minneapolis to check out the Museum Of Questionable Medical Devices.

This museum has very weird hours, open mainly in the evenings, but is worth checking out if you are in the area. It’s free to go to and basically chronicles all the quackery that’s been sold in the last century or so. What’s somewhat worrying is that as recently as 1995, the FDA banned a device that apparently cured AIDS but was really just a metal box with black plastic knobs that did nothing.

We were impressed also by the RectoRotor which apparently relieved constipation but people were a little reluctant to use it, since it was inserted exactly where you’re thinking.

One of the best machines there was a great little device. Say you wanted a person to get better. You just popped a photo of the person in a cylinder on the machine and turned it on. Good health waves would be subliminally sent to the person in the photo and they would get better.

But then it had other uses. Say you wanted to get rid of an insect problem in your fields. You just dropped a photo of the field, a dead insect, and some insectide into the machine and it would take care of that as well. A very handy little machine indeed. And people bought this rubbish???

Finally, we got back to Goodhue and we’re ready to be on the move once more in the van. Hopefully no more problems are going to happen. I doubt there is anything else that can go wrong with it (touch wood), and whoever buys the van off us is going to get a real bargain since there are all new parts in it…

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Call it a subconscious repressal or something, but the last two updates from here were supposed to include a SPOTD tale. How could I forget to include it? Well, it left me the SPOTD so I think my brain was making that information hidden to me when I was typing.

We were driving toward Rochester, Minnesota a few days back, on the 9th, when we found that the road we were on was closed down for repairs and there was a detour.

We took the detour road and were happily driving along at about 5mph below the speed limit because we were passing some sheds full of turkeys and I was having a look at them as we passed.

Having passed the sheds, I looked further down the road and noticed a car sitting by the side of the road which looked like a police car. I quickly glanced down at the speedometer and saw that I was still fine, and was travelling along at the 5mph below level I’d been at for the past few miles. There were no cars behind us, so it had not been an issue to drive at that pace.

It became clear that it was a police car, but since I was not speeding, and there was no danger to me, I was looking at it, trying to figure out why it was sitting in the middle of nowhere.

We were about 2 miles from the nearest intersection and since you could see the car from such a long distance, it seemed difficult to believe it would catch anyone speeding. We assumed it had just caught someone coming the other way, given them a ticket, the person caught had then driven away, and they were just wrapping up the bookwork.

I read the side and saw it was a local police car, not a highway patrol car, and then looked back at the road again.

Uh-oh.

There, a mere 30 metres (90 feet) away was a stop sign.

Where the police officer had been sitting, and due to the slow rise of the road, the car had actually hidden the sign until the last minute.

I tried to hit the brakes and then realised I would flip the car trying to pull it up in that distance, when travelling at 55mph, so I gave up and just went sailing through it.

Sure enough, as soon as I did that, the lights came on and the police car moved out after us.

Bugger. All the good driving in the USA was now null and void. For five months, I’ve driven on the wrong side of the road and dealt with such bizarre traffic rules as the 4-way stop sign, only to sail through a stop sign - RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE POLICE CAR!

I was so embarrassed.

We pulled over and the police officer came to the window.

PO: “Good afternoon. Do you know what you just did?”

TC: “Yes. It was so stupid. There I was, driving down the road thinking “I wonder why the police car is way out here” and then I looked up and said “Oh. I know why now”…”

PO: “That’s right. We have been having some problems with locals doing what you’ve just done - not stopping, just slowing down and going right through it. Can I see your licence please?”

TC: “Yeah, here you are. I also have an International Driver’s Licence in the back if you need that.”

PO: “No, this should be fine.”

At this point, he took the licence back to the car and did some checking. We are not sure what he could check, since we did not figure that he’d be able to access the Australian police system from his car, but there was always the number plate on the van that he could check, we figure.

He returned to the car and handed the licence back with a grin on his face.

PO: “Well, I am not going to give you a fine this time. You might like to watch out for those stop signs in the future though.”

TC: “I know. I know. It’s so embarrassing to get pulled up for this. We’ve been on the wrong side of the road for a few months and then I go do this - it’s rather foolish, don’t you think?”

He agreed, and we had some further small talk about the trip and where we were going, as well as the traffic fine costs.

It turned out that the fine for running a stop sign would have been USD$90 - that would have made a nasty dent in the savings for a stupid act. We think we only got away with it because they were after local people, and the accent clearly made us not local at all.

Also, we did the right thing, and turned off the radio, removed sunglasses and looked contrite about the whole deal instead of firing up at him for blocking the stop sign to raise revenue or something like that to provoke him into giving us a fine.

In any event, it’s been just a barrel of laughs (read : not really) driving with Di for the past few days. Every time we come to a stop sign, Di leans over and says quietly “You know, you need to stop at one of these Trav” with a smirk on her face.

Very funny for her. Still rather embarrassingly stupid for me. Hence, I won the SPOTD for the 9th…

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This is the first email sent out using the new system, and hopefully, it will work seamlessly and I did not lose anyone out of it.

The website is up to date once more in terms of images, with the exception of yesterday’s installment from Goodhue, Minnesota. The images are still on disk in the van, and they will be added at some time in the future, after the van returns from the repair shop.

The Dodge County Fair was a lot of fun. It’s the first time either Di or myself have ever seen pig racing which was a lot of fun. Alas, the camera was in the van also, so I was unable to capture the excitement. Try to just imagine four terrified piglets racing around a track to claim the prize of an Oreo cookie at the other end of the circuit. Hilarious to watch.

We also learned a lot about the world through the kid’s exhibits in the various categories. Among other things we learned:

• People in Australia are not allowed to wear pyjamas to breakfast.
• There are many things about the Australian government that are easy to remember.
• Koalas eat between 200-500 pounds of leaves per day. (Now there’s a reason not to stand under a gum tree! Look at the size of a koala - that much food has to be going out somewhere!)
• Koalas never leave the same tree for their entire lives. (Amazing regenerative powers of eucalypts, it would seem, since they have to cope with the removal of 200-500 pounds of leaves per day!)
• Macaroni and cheese can contain the following ingredient - 1/4 cup pees. (That’s what gives it the yellow colour, we think).

All in all, it was a great lot of fun, and we even managed to see a few kangaroos in the petting zoo, so we got a great chuckle out of it all. So glad we finally made it to a County Fair on this trip, and we highly encourage any other travellers to make this a definite to do at some point also.

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