December 19 - Australia: Cairns

Morning Walk Along the Esplanade

Since Jon gets up so darn early, I've decided to go out and get some exercise as well.  I went out for a walk yesterday, but didn't take the time to write it up in the journal.  But I'll write up today's instead.

The path along the Esplanade is very nice, and quite busy with walkers, bikers, and joggers - even at 6:00 in the morning.  It took me about 45 minutes to walk all the way down and back, but it was a really nice walk.  I wish I had some real exercise clothes, as regular shorts and Tevas don't really cut it.  But I got a good workout nonetheless.

There are a few older Chinese couples who come out to do their Tai Chi exercises, which I love to watch.  This morning, there was one particular woman who could touch her toes better than any dancer that I'd ever seen.  Pretty impressive!

Why is low tide so far from the shore? - Run #32

For this morning's run the sun was relatively hidden by clouds so I decided to run along the shoreline.  Usually it's way too sunny and there is so little shade there that I avoid the shoreline the same way that an overweight person avoids any food with the word "light" in the title.

So I get there, and it must have been low tide because the shore was just muddy and the the water was about 200 meters from shore.  Why is that?  I mean, I understand that the tides are controlled by the lunar cycles or at least I accept this as a certainty that some genius along the way has proven and don't question it, but why is the tide so far out?  Between pondering this, the smooshed frogs from yesterday, and many more of life's infinite mysteries, I don't know that I'll ever get a chance to solve world peace during my runs.  Can someone help me out here?  

So the run was fine.  Today was what I call my speed workout--basically a chance for my slow-self to build some sort of speed endurance.  Let's just say I was glad when it was over!

We were going to go to Palm Cove today, but we had some errands to do instead.  Jon was determined to get ingredients for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner, and spent 3 hours wandering the aisles of two different grocery stores looking for staple items such as applesauce and green chilies.  And here we were so excited to have so many western amenities.  So much for that!

So he came back to the house and washed and waxed his new baby instead.

Nice Buns.

Simmering Sauce

I threw together some pasta sauce with all the good stuff in it (meat, mushrooms, onions, peppers, tomatoes) and let it simmer for a few hours on the stove.  The only problem was that the "Low" setting on the range was a bit too hot for my liking, so I alternated between "Off" and "Low" every 20 minutes or so. The house smelled absolutely HEAVENLY for hours.  And then - suddenly - it smelled of burning pasta sauce.  OH NO!!!  I raced downstairs and quickly took the pot off the range.  It seems that, when I last switched the range from "Off" to "Low", I accidentally put it on "High"!  What a mess.  Thankfully, most of the sauce was OK as long as I didn't scrape any gunk off the bottom.

I just re-read that paragraph.  My life is SO exciting.